Mobile network Three will offer its customers 4G by the end of this year at no extra charge and without having to buy their way out of existing 3G contracts. Three is the last of the UK networks to get on board with 4G, almost a year after EE spearheaded the upgrade. Both O2 and Vodafone launched ten months later, in August this year. Mobile network Three will offer its customers 4G by the end of this year at no extra charge and without having to buy their way out of existing 3G contracts.
While other networks are requiring users to pay off their existing contracts and sign new 4G deals in order to access LTE, Three has said that it will just send out software updates that will bring existing users with 4G enabled phones online. They will then have unlimited data at no extra cost. “When 4G arrives in your area we will nudge you up with a simple free software update. So long as you have a 4G Ready device, you would not pay a penny extra.”
The company is running trials of 4G in Birmingham, London, Manchester and Reading, with other towns and cities being brought online in the New Year. Customers in the first batch of places to get 4G will be able to make the switch as of Monday.
Three already offers DC-HSPA, which is a high-speed 3G network providing downloads of up to 12Mbps more than some customers report receiving on EE’s 4G network in some places. But the company claims that a realistic speed on its new 4G network will be 14Mbps. Earlier this week EE announced that it would be bringing 4G to 29 more towns and cities before Christmas, including Bath, Bournemouth, Brighton, Portsmouth and Redcar.