While most of the big UK phone networks launched their 5G networks in 2019, we've had to wait until early 2020 for Three to follow suit – and we now know when the company is set to press that big red '5G' button.
Three has pledged to switch on its network by the end of February in 65 locations including London, Manchester, Cardiff, Reading and Bristol.
That's plenty of launch cities, and a lot more than other networks – EE launched its 5G in eight cities and O2 in six. So 5G fans in places like Barrow-in-Furness, Clayton-Le-Woods, Shelly Green, Hedge Green, Inchinnan and Hemel Hempstead will soon have access to the next-gen network too.
- What you need to know about 5G in the UK
- These are all the 5G phones so far
- Check out the best 5G phone deals
It's worth pointing out that other networks have since rolled their coverage to many more cities than those they launched on, but we're not too sure that other networks prioritized coverage for the Scottish village of Inchinnan (pop: 1,574 according to Wikipedia).
Part of the attraction of Three's 5G network over others is its expanded bandwidth, which should make the 5G experience a little faster, although we'll have to test out a Three 5G phone on its network to see if this is indeed the case.
Three doesn't reference any particular 5G phones in its launch announcement, but it already lists a few on its website, including the Huawei Mate 20 X 5G, the Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus and the Galaxy S20 Ultra.
The latter two are only available for pre-order right now, as the Samsung Galaxy S20 series of phones are slated to be available from March 13 in the UK, which will be after Three's 5G network launches assuming it's on schedule.
We don't yet know the exact date from when you'll be able to use Three's 5G network in the UK, but we'll let you know as soon as we find out.
