Along with Vodafone, EE and O2, Three were one of the winners in the recent 4G mobile spectrum auction. However while the other networks spent near astronomical sums on huge chunks of spectrum, Three spent a relatively modest £225,000,000 and won 2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz of spectrum.
Not only have they not spent out as much as the other networks but they also don’t seem in as much of a hurry to launch a 4G service, as their CEO Dave Dyson ( above ) has recently announced that they won’t be rolling out 4G until the fourth quarter of the year. To put that into perspective EE’s 4GEE service is already live, while Vodafone and O2 are both likely to launch this summer.
It might seem strange that Three are opting to enter the market so late, but they’ve given a couple of logical reasons for their slower approach. First off they want to see how 4G is positioned by O2 and Vodafone before jumping in - presumably meaning they’ll look at their rivals pricing, marketing and how they go about rolling it out and develop a strategy of their own that plays off that.
Dyson didn’t go into much detail on the matter, but he did say that “We’re in no rush to launch LTE. First we’ll see how 4G is positioned by O2 and Vodafone and look at how we position it. I’m fairly relaxed about it.”
The other reason that Three are in no real hurry to launch 4G is that they already have Ultrafast (a substantially faster version of 3G), which is a good stop gap and is getting positive feedback from customers - so they’ll work on improving the speeds and popularity of that.
When Three do finally roll out 4G they plan to start with areas that have the highest demand for mobile internet, which will presumably be major cities. They’ve also stated that this will be made available as an upgrade for customers that already use Ultrafast and that as long as you’re on an Ultrafast plan and have a 4G-ready handset (which all of their Ultrafast phones are), then you’ll be able to use 4G at no extra charge - while still having access to Three’s existing Ultrafast services in places where 4G isn’t available.
Although Three are probably going to be the last network to launch 4G in the UK it could be worth the wait, as their tariffs tend to be pretty good value, plus they’re still offering plans with unlimited data and if they genuinely don’t up the cost for existing customers then they may well become the cheapest 4G network.
Right now Three’s range of Ultrafast/4G ready phones is fairly small, but it includes many of the best handsets on the market, from the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, to the iPhone 5, HTC One, Sony Xperia Z and even the brand new Samsung Galaxy S4. Plus if you’d rather get Ultrafast/4G action on a tablet they also offer it for the iPad Mini.
