>
"Three’s 5G has actually been running since last summer : I should know, I was in one of the pilot areas in London and signed up for their home broadband offering on day one."But this is not really the Three network. It's a separate network with a different network ID and cannot be accessed with ordinary Three devices/SIM cards.
It's based on the network formerly known as "Relish", which was bought by Three in 2017. The areas covered by Three Broadband's 5G are basically exactly the same areas which were always covered by Relish. They just upgraded the equipment to use 5G radio.
Relish held a lot of spectrum in the 3.5 Ghz (n78) band. Three, by arrangement with OfCom, added Relish's holding to their own 3.5 Ghz spectrum won at auction to give them the contiguous 100 Mhz.
There is an additional 200 Mhz of 5G spectrum being auctioned this year, which should bring the other operator's 5G holdings up to comparable levels with Three's:
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/ofcom-to-hold-next-5g-spec...
