Three UK Get 300Gbps Capacity Boost for 4G Mobile Broadband Network

Mobile operator Three UK has signed a major multi-million pound 5-year fibre optic capacity deal with Virgin Media Business, which should improve their 3G and 4G based Mobile Broadband speeds by boosting the platforms backhaul network with an extra 300Gbps (Gigabits per second).

The upgrade should help to improve connectivity between Three UK’s 15 aggregation sites, which are already supported by VMB through the operators network sharing deal with rival EE, and 3 core data centres across the United Kingdom.

Bryn Jones, Three’s CTO, said:

“Being able to browse the internet and stream videos instantly without buffering has become a minimum requirement for many customers when deciding on their provider. With the new high-capacity backhaul network from Virgin Media Business we are ready to welcome even more people to the Three family. Regardless of where they are, now all of our customers will receive the best possible experiences when using 4G.”

Three UK have only just begun the national deployment their new 4G (LTE) services (roll-out details) and so it’s quite normal for big operators to sign new capacity deals in order to support such developments, much as O2, Vodafone and EE have already done. The new 4G network can deliver significantly faster speeds and that extra performance has to be supported by something.

The mobile operator aims to cover 50 cities with 4G by the end of 2014, which will rise to 98% of the population by the end of 2015. Customers have been told to expect early 4G speeds of around 14Mbps (Megabits per second) but the technology could go a lot faster as more operators follow EE to begin adopting LTE-Advanced technology (here).