Three switches on its 5G network in London - prompting advert complaint from EE

EE complains that Three's adverts, claiming that "If it's not Three, it's not real 5G", are misleading.

Three UK has switched on its 5G network today - or, at least, a small part of it in London - only to be greeted with a complaint from rival EE over its 5G advertising.

The company is focusing on 5G as an alternative to broadband in its early roll-outs, rather than 5G mobile phone coverage, given the small number of mobile devices available and their high cost.

Three's 5G 'plug and play' service costs £35 per month and includes "truly unlimited" access to "fibre-like speeds", the company claims, with subscribers tied-in to a one-year contract.

Three hasn't revealed how fast these so-called "fibre-like" speeds will be, nor the latency that can be expected, but previously said it would be offering speeds up to 3.5-times faster than its rivals. In a recent trial carried out with Huawei, the service delivered peak speeds of 2Gbps.

"Three's 5G is going to revolutionise the home broadband experience," claimed Three CEO David Dyson. "No more paying for landline rental, no more waiting for engineers, and even a same-day delivery option. It really is the straightforward plug and play broadband that customers have been waiting for.

Three's 5G 'plug and play' service costs £35 per month and includes "truly unlimited" access to "fibre-like speeds"

"We've taken a simple approach with one single truly unlimited data plan to give customers the opportunity to fully explore 5G and all its exciting possibilities. The ease and immediacy of it all means home broadband using 5G is going to be key to the future of the connected home."

Though currently only available in parts of London, Three has said its 5G service will be available in 25 towns and cities across the UK before the end of the year.

These cities include: Birmingham, Bolton, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Coventry, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Reading, Rotherham, Sheffield, Slough, Sunderland and Wolverhampton.

However, the switch-on was somewhat spoilt by a complaint from rival EE over the company's launch advertising.

EE filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) claiming that its slogan, "If it's not Three, it's not real 5G", was misleading. The ASA will now investigate whether the adverts, which appeared in newspapers and on social media, are in breach of the advertising code.

EE isn't the only operator to take issue with Three. O2 last week moaned to Ofcom about its plans to defragment 5G spectrum in the 3.4-3.8GHz band, which it claims "is currently the most important range of frequencies for the launch and development of 5G mobile services" and puts Three at an unfair advantage.

"Unfortunately, Ofcom's policies to date have favoured one operator, [Three UK], allowing it to establish a ‘kingmaker' position, from which it can attempt to extract windfall gains from rivals in return for moving its spectrum, or otherwise expect anti-competitive rents from blocking rivals from acquiring larger contiguous blocks," O2 told ISPReview.

In a statement, Ofcom has said that it's "releasing more airwaves to support the roll-out of 5G.

"We've also proposed new measures to make it easier for mobile companies to bring together their different blocks of spectrum, to help provide a better 5G service for customers," the watchdog added. "We are considering all responses to our consultation before making our final decisions later this year."

Vodafone was the first UK mobile operator to switch-on its 5G network, with its core network based on Ericsson hardware.