Technology

Posted on November 7, 2018 by staff

UK mobile operator commits £2bn to 5G

Technology

Mobile operator Three UK has pledged to invest more than £2 billion to support the commercial roll-out of 5G mobile technology to its customers by the second half of 2019.

The company announced it has completed a number of key steps in its network improvement programme, as part of a wider £2 billion infrastructure investment.

The improvements will make Three UK “well positioned to bring market leading 5G to customers in 2019”.

“We have always led on mobile data and 5G is another game-changer,” said CEO Dave Dyson, who added that the technology also opens up new possibilities in home broadband and industrial applications.

“This is a major investment into the UK’s digital infrastructure. UK consumers have an insatiable appetite for data and 5G unlocks significant capability to meet that demand.

“We have been planning our approach to 5G for many years and we are well positioned to lead on this next generation of technology.

“These investments are the latest in a series of important building blocks to deliver the best end to end data experience for our customers.”

As part of its network upgrade, Three has acquired the UK’s leading 5G spectrum portfolio and signed an agreement for the rollout of new cell site technology to prepare urban areas for the rollout of 5G devices.

The telecoms operator has also built a high-capacity dark fibre network which connects 20 new data centres and deployed a 5G-ready, fully integrated cloud native core network in the new data centres.

Finally, it has also rolled out ‘carrier aggregation technology’ on 2,500 sites in busy areas.

Three anticipates that 5G mobile technology will be available to customers by the second half of 2019.