Three UK selects NEC’s latest small cell as part of ‘Home Signal’ service

London & Tokyo, June 6, 2013 –NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced that Three UK is launching NEC’s latest residential small cell access point, FP813T, as part of its ‘Home Signal’ service.

 

Three UK’s Home Signal residential proposition is now in its second year of commercial service and continues to support Three UK in delivering a premium network experience.  Since its launch in February 2012, Home Signal has been used by thousands of customers.

 

“We selected NEC’s latest small cell access point based on performance and design coupled with the seamless integration with our small cell gateway that NEC has provided since the start of the project. The lab testing and accreditation of this device was successful and early user feedback has been very positive,” said Mark Williams, Lead Product Manager, Devices, Three UK.

 

“Three UK continues to show innovation in delivering a great network experience for its customers” said Fredrik Tumegård, Head of Northern Cluster, NEC Europe Ltd. “With a significant proportion of network usage taking place indoors, Three UK is quick to recognise the value of residential small cells and how they can contribute towards its Network. We look forward to supporting Three UK’s small cell growth plans.”

 

The FP813T device uses the same 3G spectrum twice and therefore greatly increases the spectrum re-use efficiency and the amount of traffic a single 5MHz carrier can serve within a given area. Unlike other small cell products, NEC’s small cell does not need its own dedicated carrier/spectrum which can be considered a less than optimal use of precious spectrum resources.

 

The Home Signal package with FP813T arrives by mail and pre-provisioned with an appropriate whitelist. Users can simply plug in and receive an instant mobile experience upgrade to all household members on the Three UK network.

 

 

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About Three UK

Three is a communications company focused on bringing the benefits of the internet to mobile.  We offer attractive pricing, all-you-can-eat data packages, market-leading devices and a network built for data. Combined, this gives our customers the widest choice of ways to stay connected to the mobile internet.

Our network, supported by HSPA+ technology, covers 98% of the UK population.  We've already rolled out our Ultrafast network, enabled by Dual Carrier High Speed Data Packet Access (DC-HSDPA) services to 80% of the population, and we will be adding LTE 4G to our Ultrafast mix later this year.

In the past year we have doubled our spectrum holdings with both 800MHz and 1800MHz spectrum to support our ongoing network expansion.

Today, we have over 13,300 sites in our network and plan to add another 5,000 by 2015 to bring improved mobile internet capacity to more people in more places than ever.

At the end of 2012, we were proud to say we had just over nine million customers enjoying a great mobile internet experience on our network.

 

Three UK is a member of the HWL group of companies, with investments in mobile operations in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Macau, Sri Lanka, Sweden and Vietnam.

To find out how we intelligently manage data traffic on our network, please visit www.three.co.uk/trafficsense.

 

Three Group A division of Hutchison Whampoa, the Three Group together with Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, is the leading global player in the 3G arena, holding licences in 11 markets with total population coverage of approximately 175 million. The Three Group has built an entirely new mobile broadband network, achieving probably the fastest rollout of a radio network in the entire telecom industry. Marketed globally under the Three brand, the group was the first operator in the world to provide dual-mode 3G services. To date, commercial 3G services have been launched in Italy, the UK, Australia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong and Ireland. Hutchison announced more than 29.7 million customers in March 2011. For more information about Three, please visit www.three.com

 

 

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation is a leader in the integration of IT and network technologies that benefit businesses and people around the world. By providing a combination of products and solutions that cross utilize the company’s experience and global resources, NEC’s advanced technologies meet the complex and ever-changing needs of its customers. NEC brings more than 100 years of expertise in technological innovation to empower people, businesses and society.  For more information, visit NEC at http://www.nec.com.

 

NEC is a registered trademark of NEC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Other product or service marks mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. (C)2013 NEC Corporation.