4G in the UK – Three are to be in the game

We told you yesterday that Everything Everywhere had got the go-ahead from Ofcom to roll out 4G LTE in the UK this year, but it now seems there has been a development in the favour of Three. Everything Everywhere have today announced that they now have an agreement with Three to dispose of 2X15MHz of its 1800MHz. The disposal is in line with the European Commission’s competitive assessment of the merger of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK in March 2010, and follows the news that Ofcom has approved Everything Everywhere’s request to liberalise its 1800MHz spectrum for 4G LTE services.

Dave Dyson, CEO of Three UK said: “Acquiring this spectrum will more than double the capacity available to customers on our network.  We have seen a huge growth in data consumption with average mobile handset customer usage now more than 1.1GB per month. 

Three has led the market in the significant growth of mobile data consumption and the shift to consumer use of smartphones to access the internet.  New spectrum, supported by further committed technology spend, is a clear signal that we are committed to maintain our lead as the network built for the mobile internet.”

From a consumers point of view this is great news as it will not just be Orange and T-Mobile that initially dominate the UK 4G market. Let’s see what else develops.

Posted by: James