Three UK Boast 5G Latency Cred with Call of Duty Game Promo

Mobile operator Three UK are keen to showcase the benefits of their new “ultra-fast” 5G home broadband network (here) and to that end they’ve agreed a new partnership with Activision, which will help to promote the remaster of the publisher’ popular Call of Duty: Modern Warefare multiplayer video game.

According to Three UK, “5G will give Call of Duty players the optimum online experience … [via] super smooth gameplay, where the only thing limiting a superior performance, will be the player’s skill.” The operator goes on to promise none of the “all too familiar stuttering, annoying freezing and dull loading bars that we have all become used to” (the latter is a reference to older networks, such as 4G).

The operator also encourages customers to “put 5G through its paces versus the standard wired home broadband connection to witness the speeds for themselves,” although they perhaps wisely stop short of explicitly promising a better experience than via a fixed line service (too many potential caveats to consider).

As part of this customers on Three’s unlimited 5G home broadband service (£35 per month) will be given early access to the the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Beta plus a bonus jet-themed in-game weapon charm, although the game will shortly be running an open access beta (i.e. no need to be a Three customer).

Shadi Halliwell, CMO at Three UK, said:

“Ultra-fast speeds are a priority for seamless streaming of entertainment especially gaming. Three is delivering a 5G experience that can’t be beaten which makes us the natural choice for one of the world’s leading games’ publishers.

Customers also don’t want restrictions around how they consume entertainment and with 5G it’s important everyone can explore all its exciting possibilities without worrying about incurring hidden data costs. The combination of our superior 5G network that comes at no extra cost, our truly unlimited data plan and this fantastic partnership with Activision, means gamers can play the world’s most popular game without boundaries and simply concentrate on their chosen mission.”

No doubt Three UK’s rivals may have a thing or two to say about their “5G experience that can’t be beaten” claim, particularly since EE has already lodged a complaint about a similar claim (here) and the operator fails to substantiate it with proper independent evidence of performance and coverage (just having access to a bigger chunk of spectrum – 100MHz – isn’t the only factor to consider).

Likewise ultrafast speeds are handy for downloading and patching, although multiplayer gaming itself is much more latency (ping) dependent. In this case 5G definitely should deliver an improvement as it’s capable of much lower and more stable latency than 3G or 4G, although mobile signals are not immune to disruption and so claiming that 5G will not suffer from “stuttering, annoying freezing and dull loading bars” might be stretching expectations a bit.

Similarly some of those who gave Three’s 5G network a try experienced some buffering when trying to stream a 4K movie via Netflix and we’ve seen ping times of around 20-35ms reported when others have tested a number of different fast paced multiplayer games, like Overwatch. We’ve had a figure like 35-40ms ourselves on some 4G mobile networks when testing online games, although that’s still very good for mobile in general.

Overall 5G should bring a big improvement but it’s important to manage expectations a bit, not least because mobile signals are still subject to a lot of different environmental factors that may change from place to place, network to network and device to device.