Hutchison 3G UK
Ltd is a British
telecommunications
Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
and
internet service provider
An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...
currently based in
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It is a subsidiary of
CK Hutchison Holdings
CK Hutchison Holdings Limited is a Hong Kong-based and Cayman Islands-registered multinational conglomerate corporation. The company was formed in March 2015 through the merger of Cheung Kong Holdings and its main associate company Hutchison Wh ...
, operating under the global
Three
3 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
3, three, or III may also refer to:
* AD 3, the third year of the AD era
* 3 BC, the third year before the AD era
* March, the third month
Books
* '' Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...
brand. Three is the
fourth-largest mobile network operator in the United Kingdom, with about 9.5 million subscribers as of 2021.
The company launched on 3 March 2003 as the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's first commercial 100%
3G network. It provides 3G,
4G and
5G (certain areas) services through its own network infrastructure.
History
The Three mobile service was launched in the UK on 3 March 2003 with handsets going on sale (such as the
NEC e616 {{Notability, Products, date=March 2015
The NEC e616 mobile phone is a handheld 3G phone from NEC Corporation.
Rechargeable battery
The e616 takes Lithium ion batteries, which are available in different capacities:
* 780 mA·h standard battery ...
in 2004 and
Sony Ericsson Z1010
The following is a list of products manufactured under the Sony Ericsson brand. Most of the models have been released under multiple names, depending on region of release, currently usually indicated by a letter added to the end of the model numb ...
) later that year. Three was the UK’s first commercial
video mobile (3G) network.
Three was the first network to meet its regulatory requirement of 80% population coverage in the UK, meeting this by 9 December 2004.
![Three UK Store in Tunbridge Wells](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Three_UK_Store_in_Tunbridge_Wells.jpg)
Three's first retail stores (3Store) opened at the same time as the network launched, on
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
and
Kensington High Street, both in London, and at the
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
Mailbox. Three also sold handsets, devices and contracts through independent and online retailers at the time. In 2005, Three expanded, and stores opened in larger shopping centres throughout the UK On 24 October 2006, Three announced that it had purchased 95 high street shops from
O2 and
The Link.
Three launched SeeMeTV, allowing its customers to submit their own video content that other subscribers could watch. Users would make a small
micropayment
A micropayment is a financial transaction involving a very small sum of money and usually one that occurs online. A number of micropayment systems were proposed and developed in the mid-to-late 1990s, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. A s ...
(the price decided by the video's creator) to watch these videos. The user who created the videos would get paid 10% of the amount of money paid by other users to watch the video. Users were paid once they had accrued £10.
In 2010, Three became the fourth network in the UK to launch the
iPhone 4
The iPhone 4 is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the fourth generation of the iPhone lineup, succeeding the iPhone 3GS and preceding the 4S. Following a number of notable leaks, the iPhone 4 was first unvei ...
after O2, Orange and Vodafone.
In July 2014, Three introduced the '3 inTouch' app, allowing customers to place calls through a
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
connection. Three customers can also access the Virgin
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...
network implemented at over 130
London Underground
The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...
stations.
On 24 March 2015, Three's parent company Hutchison Whampoa announced it would acquire the UK operations of
O2 for £10.25 billion, subject to regulatory approval. On 11 May 2016, EU commission blocked the purchase of O2 on the grounds that it would affect competition in the UK market.
In November 2016, three men were arrested after a data breach at the Three mobile network allowed fraudsters to access personal data and steal phones. The company said that while names and addresses were accessed, some financial information might be compromised. Fraudsters were understood to have used authorised login information to order upgraded phones, including iPhone and Samsung handsets, to be sent to customers before intercepting them. Three, which has nine million customers, said it believed around 400 phones had been stolen.
In early 2020, CEO of Three UK, Dave Dyson, resigned after 9 years at the helm. He was replaced by
Three Ireland
Three Ireland, officially Three Ireland (Hutchison) Limited (formerly Hutchison 3G Ireland Ltd), is a telecommunications and internet service provider operating in Ireland as a subsidiary of CK Hutchison, operating under the global Three bran ...
's CEO, Robert Finnegan, who now manages both companies.
Three had been the main shirt sponsor of
Premier League
The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
club
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
since the
2020–21 season. On 10 March 2022, Three announced they were ending their sponsorship deal with Chelsea immediately, and asked the club to remove the 3 logo from their kits.
Network
In order to provide coverage parity with other networks in the
UK, Three initially maintained a
national roaming
Roaming is a wireless telecommunication term typically used with mobile devices, such as mobile phones. It refers to a mobile phone being used outside the range of its native network and connecting to another available cell network.
Technical ...
agreement with an established
2G network operator. Until 2006,
O2 operated this service for Three customers. However,
Orange
Orange most often refers to:
*Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis''
** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower
*Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum
* ...
was selected as the new national roaming partner from 10 May 2006.
In the early period of
3G network, Orange 2G (acquired by
EE in 2010)
was adopted in areas as a fallback where 3G wasn't available. The 2G fallback coverage provided by Orange has since been removed as Three believes 3G and
4G technology is now sufficient for mass adoption - and as a result, older phones that support only 2G networks are not compatible with the Three network. From 2013, Three no longer provided a significant 2G fallback for most of the United Kingdom.
On 18 December 2007,
T-Mobile
T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...
and Three launched a 50:50 joint venture called
Mobile Broadband Network Limited
Due to economy of scale property of telecommunication industry, sharing of telecom infrastructure among telecom service providers is becoming the requirement and process of business in the telecom industry where competitors are becoming partners in ...
(MBNL) which aimed to combine both of their 3G networks and provide almost complete 3G population coverage by the end of 2008. On 12 November 2010, MBNL announced that the network had reached a total of 12,000 combined sites.
4G
Three began a limited rollout of
4G LTE services in December 2013 in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
,
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
,
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
and
Reading
Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch.
For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...
expanding to over a further 450 locations by the end of 2014.
In August 2012 Three was given permission to use part of the 1,800
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
spectrum used by
EE's 4G network. On 20 February 2013 Ofcom announced that Three had been awarded 2 x 5 MHz (10 MHz) of 800 MHz to use for 4G.
Three planned to launch 4G in the second quarter of 2013, however it delayed the rollout until Q4, saying that it wanted to analyse the performance of other networks' 4G coverage first. The network provides LTE and
DC-HSDPA
Evolved High Speed Packet Access, HSPA+, HSPA (Plus) or HSPAP, is a technical standard for wireless broadband telecommunication. It is the second phase of HSPA which has been introduced in 3GPP release 7 and being further improved in later 3GPP ...
service as a standard feature to all its subscribers using "Ultrafast" to describe both technologies, making it the cheapest price for 4G and the only unlimited 4G in the UK. On 23 April 2015, Three announced that
VoLTE
Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is an LTE high-speed wireless communication standard for mobile phones and data terminals, including Internet of things (IoT) devices and wearables. VoLTE has up to three times more voice and data capacity than older 3G ...
would be rolled out along with 800 MHz spectrum from September.
Roaming at domestic prices
![Map of Three UK](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Map_of_Three_UK_%22Go_Roam%22_countries_and_territories.svg)
Until 2009, Three subscribers in the UK,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
,
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
,
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
and
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
could use their service on Three networks around the world for no extra charge with "3 Like Home". The service was relaunched on 30 August 2013 as "Feel At Home" for UK customers visiting Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy and Sweden where calls, texts and data can be consumed without roaming charges; meaning they cost the same as for communication within the UK. Additional countries were subsequently added to "Feel At Home" including
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
,
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,
Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
,
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...
,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
,
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and the
USA
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
.
The service was expanded to a further 24
European countries
The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the regions of Europe, various common definitions of Europe, geographical or political. Fifty generally recognised sovereign states, Kosovo with limited, but substantial, ...
in September 2016. Three changed the name of its roaming proposition from "Feel at Home" to "Go Roam", which now covers 59 countries and territories since 2017. Three advertises that the service covers "71 destinations" because it counts several countries multiple times. For example Three counts "Ireland" and "
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. A ...
" as two destinations, counts
Åland
Åland ( fi, Ahvenanmaa: ; ; ) is an Federacy, autonomous and Demilitarized zone, demilitarised region of Finland since 1920 by a decision of the League of Nations. It is the smallest region of Finland by area and population, with a size of 1 ...
in addition to
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
, counts two parts of Spain in addition to Spain, counts two parts of
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
in addition to Portugal, and counts eight parts of France in addition to France. "Go Roam" only covers roaming, and does not include non-roaming services such as international calls made from the UK.
Frequency allocations
Virtual operators
The Three network is used by two
mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).
Dixons Carphone
Currys plc, formerly Dixons Carphone plc, is a British multinational electrical and telecommunications retailer and services company headquartered in London, England. It was formed on 7 August 2014 by the merger of Dixons Retail and Carphon ...
launched their
iD Mobile
iD Mobile is a British mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) operating as iD Mobile Limited, using the Three network. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Currys plc, and its services were launched on 12 May 2015. Until April 2018, ser ...
network in May 2015. In June 2018, Three UK and sister company
Superdrug entered an MVNO partnership to launch Superdrug Mobile, which is exclusive to members of Superdrug's "Health & Beautycard" loyalty scheme.
SMARTY
In August 2017, Three launched a
no frills SIM-only brand called
SMARTY
SMARTY is a mobile telephone flanker brand operated by Hutchison 3G UK Limited using its Three UK branded mobile network. It aims to attract customers primarily looking for cheaper deals than those available direct from Three, by offering a mo ...
to compete against
O2's
giffgaff
Giffgaff (stylised "giffgaff") is marketed as a lower cost mobile phone flanker brand of Telefónica UK (trading as O2 UK), and was launched on 25 November 2009.
Products and services
At launch, Giffgaff's first product was a prepaid SIM c ...
and
Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
, Vod ...
's
VOXI.
Awards
In 2010, Three was voted Best Network for Mobile Broadband in a YouGov survey for the second year in a row.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
UK
British subsidiaries of foreign companies
Telecommunications companies established in 2003
Mobile phone companies of the United Kingdom
British companies established in 2003