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LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) - Three, Britain's smallestmobile operator, said it was confident that the quality of its3G network would stop data hungry customers defecting to rival4G services before it rolls out its own superfast coverage.
Three, owned by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa,bought airwaves for superfast mobile broadband in a spectrumauction last month and has agreed to buy addition airwaves fromBritain's first 4G provider, EE.
But it is in no hurry to launch its own 4G network.
"We have the opportunity to move quite quickly with the800Mhz spectrum that we acquired in the auction," ChiefExecutive Dave Dyson told reporters on Tuesday.
"However, realistically, I think it's going to be towardsthe end of the year before you see us launch (4G) LTE as atechnology."
That will give its bigger rivals as much as a year'sheadstart. EE, owned by France Telecom and DeutscheTelekom, launched Britain's first 4G network latelast year, and Vodafone and Telefonica's O2plan to start superfast broadband in the next few months.
Dyson, however, said customers were not too bothered aboutthe underlying network technology as long as they were able toconsume plenty of data on the move. Three has labelled its 3Gnetwork "ultrafast", and it has promised not to charge more whenit adds 4G to the mix.
"Our network stacks up very well," Dyson said. "Right nowthe latest version of 3G and the early versions of LTE are notdramatically different and I am very confident that ourcustomers are getting the right experience."
Dyson was speaking after Hutchison Whampoa released 2012results for Three UK, showing the operator had gained 900,000new customers last year, taking its registered customer base to9.1 million, while revenue increased 9 percent to 1.95 billionpounds ($3 billion).
