Three UK Start L-Band Rollout and Recycle 3G Spectrum to 4G

Mobile operator Three UK has today pledged that existing customers can expect “performance improvements” (i.e. faster mobile broadband speeds) of up to 150% as part of a major upgrade, which will see them both rollout L-Band (1.4GHz) technology to boost 4G and switch some of their 3G spectrum to 4G.

The operator first talked about their “plan” for a “nationwide” rollout of L-Band technology in August (here), which they said would “lead to further substantial speed and coverage improvements.” This is a reference to the 20MHz slice of the 1.4GHz band (1452-1492MHz) that they and Vodafone scooped up all the way back in August 2015 (here).

Back in 2015 the 1.4GHz band wasn’t widely used for Mobile Broadband connectivity and as such it has taken quite a long time to develop a solution for its commercial deployment, although Three UK says that today around 1.82 million of customers are using a compatible device (e.g. many high and mid-range Smartphones built over the past 2-3 years can support it).

The new upgrade programme is expected to run until 2023, which will be conducted in tandem with their 5G rollout that went live in Central London in August.

The Upgrade Plan

New spectrum and antennas – 6,000 sites carrying 80% of our traffic will be upgraded with new antennas and new spectrum (1400MHz or “L-Band”) meaning speed improvements of up to 150% for customers with compatible handsets. Customers without a compatible handset will also see speeds improve by about 50%.

Recycling our 3G spectrum – 12,500 sites will see speed improvements of up to 40% as we switch some of our 3G spectrum over to 4G.

The upgrades have already started in Three UK’s busiest urban network areas, so customers should start to see the benefits by the end of the year. Some 3,960 sites have also already benefited from a 15% improvement in performance thanks to the deployment of LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation technology (often shown as a 4G+ icon on phones), which is something that EE and Vodafone have been deploying for a long time.

David Dyson, CEO at Three UK, said:

“5G is a game changer for Three’s current and future customers. It will bring faster speeds, a better experience and masses of capacity which will benefit our 4G customers as well. While we are investing heavily in 5G, 4G is still very important for our mobile and home broadband services.

These upgrades will ensure that our data hungry customers are getting the best possible 4G experience as 5G rolls out.”

Speaking of being data hungry, Three UK said they’ve just become the first UK operator to smash through the 10GB monthly data usage barrier per customer. Data usage in July 2019 was a whopping 10.4GB per month versus the UK average of 2.9GB (Ofcom data).

L-Band Supporting Phones

Apple: iPhone XR, iPhone XR CDMA, iPhone XR China (Dual SIM), iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XS CDMA, iPhone XS China (Single SIM), iPhone XS Max CDMA, iPhone XS Max China (Dual SIM), iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max

HTC: M10, Pixel, Pixel XL, U

Google: Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL

Huawei: Mate 10 Pro, Mate 20 Pro, Mate 20 X, Mate 20 X 5G, P20 Pro, P30, P30 Pro, Huawei B525, Huawei B535, Huawei AI Cube

LG: G7 ThinQ, V30

OnePlus: Six, Six T, Seven, Seven Pro, Seven T, Seven T Pro
Oppo: Find X, RX17 Pro

RIM: Krypton, KeyOne 2

Samsung: Galaxy S8, Galaxy S8+, Galaxy S9, Galaxy S9+, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10+, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 5G, Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy Note 10, Galaxy Note 10 5G

Sony: Xperia XZ, Xperia XZ Premium, Xperia XZ1, Xperia XZ1 Compact, Xperia XZ2, Xperia XZ3, Xperia XZ4 (PF43), Xperia 1, Xperia 10