Three announced that it is moving to 5G home broadband service running in London today. The catch is that it's only available to a very limited selection of destinations right now - Camden, Camberwell and Southwark in London.
The network tells us "in the next couple of weeks coverage will include Hackney, Westminster and Tower Hamlets" as well and we expect to roll out quickly in the capital, ahead of the three move into 5G phones.
Three has already announced that its 5G network will come to a large number of cities by the end of the year, while Huawei Mate 20 x 5G, Xiaomi Mi Mix 5G and Samsung Note 10 5G intend to come to the rolling part of three 5G service.
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Like Vodafone with 5G mobile broadband, the three will use the pictured Huawei 5G CPE Pro router for home broadband services. Its also planning to use the same router when it rolls out home 5g broadband.
We hope to only be able to test three home 5G broadband services, so we're bringing you our initial opinion as soon as we can. Interestingly, the three are claiming it will have the fastest 5G network in the UK (twice as fast, it says). And this speed claim that we are looking forward to testing.
Why do three say it will be fast? All this thanks to the acquisition of the 140Mhz part of the spectrum, which includes a 100MHz continuous block - in other words, it has the largest spectrum together in one block. Ofcom said earlier that having so much spectrum in one block is better for 5G performance. As expected, the three positions did not go with rivals.
Huawei's 5G CPE Pro Router is very similar to the 4G network hubs previously used for home broadband, it all needs power - you just have a micro-SIM slot in the back and off you go. It works the same way as a traditional router and there are even wired ethernet ports if you need them.
In theory, you could take it with you and use it as a hotspot if there wasn't 5g coverage where you want to install it, although that's just not practical.
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