Three UK Extends 5G Mobile Coverage to 62% of Population
Mobile operator Three UK has today published their latest results to 30th June 2024, which among other things reveals that 4,900 sites (up from 4,700 six months ago) across 656 towns and cities are now live with 5G (62% population coverage) and the average data (mobile broadband) usage per customer increased to 30.5GB (up from 30GB).
The operator has also completed construction of 311 (of which 269 are live) additional sites as part of the £1bn industry-led Shared Rural Network (SRN) project, which is expanding the coverage of 4G services to more residents and businesses in rural locations across the UK.
In addition, Three UK said they’ve now replaced equipment (Huawei) on more than 600 sites (up from 350) to comply with the Government’s requirements for High-Risk Vendor (HRV) legislation (inc. 3k miles of fibre and equipment replaced across the UK), which also means that they’ve hit the July 2024 target for having less than 35% of HRV traffic on their radio network.
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Three UK also said that they’ve successfully completed a pilot programme to prepare for the switch off of 3G services, which will itself “begin in September” 2024 – the goal was to switch this network off completely by the end of 2024.
Finally, at least in terms of their network highlights, they’ve expanded their 4G and 5G network in London Underground stations, with network launches at Paddington, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf and Woolwich stations. A total of 44 stations and 45 tunnels are now live.
Robert Finnegan, CEO of Three UK, said:
“We have made progress in the first of half of the year with growth in certain segments such as SMARTY, 5G Home Broadband and B2B.
Despite scaling back our capex, we continued to make a loss driven by the escalating inflationary costs of operating our network. Our cashflows have been negative since 2020 and our costs have almost doubled in 5 years, meaning investment in network is unsustainable.
UK mobile networks rank an abysmal 22nd out of 25 in Europe on 5G speeds and availability, with the dysfunctional structure of the market denying us the ability to invest sustainably to fix this situation. Our merger with Vodafone will unlock £11bn worth of investment in digital infrastructure, creating a best-in-class 5G network for the UK and helping to grow the UK economy.”
As for the financial side of things..
Financial highlights
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- Revenue up 9% to £1,335m (H1 2023: £1,227m), with net customer revenue up 6% and handset revenue up 10%, driven by customer growth in certain customer segments (SMARTY, B2B and 5G Home Broadband)
- Total Margin up 9% to £879m (H1 2023: £808m)
- Operating expenses up 5% to £548m (H1 2023: £520m), driven by an enlarged network and cost inflation
- Reported EBITDA up 31% to £213m (H1 2023: £163m)
- Reported EBIT loss of £30m (H1 2023: £76m loss), a change of -61% y-o-y
- EBITDA-CAPEX of -£17m (H1 2023: -£112m) as cashflow has remained negative since 2020
- Reported CAPEX of £230m, down 16% y-o-y (H1 2023: £275m)
- Active customer base up 3% or 352k y-o-y bringing the total to 10.9m (H1 2023: 10.5m) amidst strong competition from MNVOs and other operators
- Total contract customers up 5% y-o-y to 9.2m (H1 2023: 8.8m) as a result of increases to B2B, 5G Home and SMARTY base offsetting decline in core business areas
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Is it still unusable on airports like Stansted? Other than that still 4G only outside and no 5G in my place in Cambs (+40k town)
In Manchester Airport it is pretty usable – at least compared to o2 which just wouldn’t let me download anything
Gatwick has a deal with Vodafone to supply PAX WiFi and so the signal is pretty spot on as well 5G terminal coverage and pretty good on the aerodrome as well….. Three not so good unfortunately…..
Still not a patch on EEs reach of 5G, but Three have faced an awful lot of nimbyism from locals and councils, so not surprised by their slow expansion.
ive never had 5g off EE lol only on three ,, i gave my free EE data sim away it was utter crap
Still 3G only in EH37 5
And London Victoria station south coast platforms 15-19 NOTHING, never got 3G, or 4G let alone 5G.
When companies use ‘population’ coverage, tested on a work day. Millions moving to big cities to work that’s a nice fix to the figures.
Don’t believe these clowns. Their coverage checker shows strong indoor and outdoor coverage for 5G in my area,but in reality there is no 5G signal,not even 4G+.
Three is poor in my aera no 5g just 4g very slow so ee is better in my area 5g and 4g.
I’d be happy if I could make a call from my home on a large housing estate in a town in the north west.
Is there a list somewhere? I would love Three to bring 5G here to stop the EE monopoly on my town. Three also has the fastest 5G network, but it’s a shame we can’t use it.
Understand that it’s a long term change but three 3G is already gone with no 5G so just 4G with a lot of users where I am in TN3, send mobile broadband being promoted to really sweat the 4G assets.
I’m not keen to welcome that mobile broadband because the CPE routers are china junk that I don’t want for my critical infrastructure. So we still wait for fibre to the premises despite the Billions of our taxes spent to help openreach shareholders.
Ditto here in HG2 town centre! Poor, 1/10.
As they say we are 22 out of 25 for coverage, you go abroad and you get good coverage, yet where I stay in Port Seton one bar, and going along the coast road 9 out of 10 no signal, no matter what network. They concentrate on cities but fail the satellite towns, but charge the same for less
We live on the edge of a large town but can barely get 4g, calls cut out and speed is dismal. Time to be more truthful about the real world dismal coverage
I’ve been using stand alone 5G in the Middle East for last two years.
It makes no difference at all.
I got a Three notification about fast 5g and run speedtest. I have to say my jaw dropped when passing Chelsea stadium on the train with 896 Mb/s result.
come on three u can do it !! take EE down .. no one wants BT crap lol
Without merger with Vodafone three is always gonna be rubbish on 4g.
@Jhhhh with a merger Three will no longer exist. Itll be one big network named (& owned by) Vodafone
I’ve recently moved from Vodafone to EE and the difference is night and day. I live in Derbyshire Dales and I get 5G nearly everywhere even in the sticks
All of these networks shout a lot about how well they are doing with coverage but the reality is often different. They all seem to significantly under invest even in populated areas. If you travel alot this becomes obvious (using native Sims not roaming). Having to chose your network based on what you can a good signal from in your local area doesn’t seem very competitive.
It’s very erratic where I live in Worle North Somerset. Sometimes download speeds will vary between less than 20Meg to up to 400Meg in a few hours.
Echoing the crowd here. Bournemouth: does NOT work. Like, at all. You can have full signal on the phone, but zero data and can’t make or receive calls. I really wish I was not with three and when the contract is up, i’ll be leaving. But who to go to ? All the UK networks are total rubbish. EE is overpriced junk and despite everyone claiming they’re awesome they also don’t work in Bournemouth (Boscombe). O2 i mean i could transmit data faster using smoke signals. Vodafone? barely works, but expensive and slow.
I think you might as well setup your own network with your own towers at this rate mate….if you’re going to be that negative
I get excellent coverage and speed from EE and Three in Edinburgh, really does depend on where you live.
Three are just like the other providers. They make their coverage claims but OpenSignal and other apps that allow crowdsourced connection results show you can cut their claimed numbers by 75% or more across the entire country.
There should be much tighter regulation on coverage numbers.
For thr non-mobile die hards reading this please take everyone’s comments here with a pinch of salt.
SPOT reviewing a network based on one persons experience (or 15 different users) cannot sum up the network as a whole.
There’s just so many variables affecting someone’s mobile experience that’s one persons experience can never be recreated.
I could say Vodafone sucks where I live yet the guy living above me loves them, and most users don’t care.
…..also most commenters will end up skewing negative if they can, so they feel they are getting one up on the network that wronged them when in truth they should have done their research first.