If you're on Three UK and holding your breath for the network's 3G rollout, you might want to give yourself a break. The company is apparently holding off on the rollout of its 4G LTE service until the end of this year.
According to Reuters, Three says that while it could potentially deploy a 4G network quite quickly, it will likely be the end of the year before it gets things up and running.
"We have the opportunity to move quite quickly with the 800Mhz spectrum that we acquired in the auction," Chief Executive Dave Dyson is quoted as saying. "However, realistically, I think it's going to be towards the end of the year before you see us launch (4G) LTE as a technology."
Dyson later added that the current version of 3G and LTE are not too far apart in terms of speeds.
"Our network stacks up very well," Dyson said. "Right now the latest version of 3G and the early versions of LTE are not dramatically different and I am very confident that our customers are getting the right experience."
Three acquired some spectrum from Everything Everywhere, back when it got permission from Ofcom to launch its 4G network ahead of Ofcom's spectrum auction. Three also bid for and won spectrum in the spectrum auction. Hutchison 3G bought 2 x 5 MHz of 800 MHz for a total of £225,000,000.
