The work is part of Three’s ambition to “ensure better connectivity, every day for every customer” and is the latest in a series of developments from the operator over recent weeks.
On its 5G network, Three recently engaged in a £100 million infrastructure investment agreement with SSE Enterprise Telecoms, intended to deliver the UK’s fastest 5G network across hundreds of towns and cities.
Last month, Three confirmed that 198 exchanges had already been deployed and that a further 259 were due to become available in the near-term, taking the total to more than 450. Three UK said it is set to utilise the expanded exchange footprint to enhance its existing 4G and to create new 5G networks.
Long-term, the aim is to provide high capacity services from at least 750 unbundled BT Exchanges.
Three UK’s network has already seen VoLTE capability on the 4G 1800/2100 MHz spectrum extended to more than 11,000 4G sites to improve the customer experience.
Additionally, Three is planning to introduce Enhanced Voice Speech (EVS) for VoLTE calling later this year. The operator counted more than 7.5 million customers with VoLTE enabled devices on its network, meaning that upwards of 80% of the customer base will benefit from these developments.
“We are investing significantly to transform our entire network experience, which will support our customers who use three times more data than the average UK consumer,” said Susan Buttsworth (pictured), chief operating officer, Three UK.
Earlier this month Three UK announced an agreement with Colt Technology Services for fibre backhaul connectivity. As Capacity reported, under the terms of the deal, Colt’s technology will deliver 20 times more backhaul capacity on the sites it is being deployed on, again giving customers a faster and more reliable experience.
Three said fibre backhaul is “a vital part of delivering a great network experience”, and that the technology will complement the recent upgrades to more than 4,000 sites with improved 4G, fully virtualised core network, 20 new data centres and 5G in more than 100 locations.
