Exciting news coming from Three (3) as the mobile operator and broadband provider has joined forces with the Countryside Alliance as well as the Race Online 2012 in order to grant free mobile broadband services (as well as dongles) for a whole year to 11 rural communities.
The lucky places will also get public Wi-Fi access in community centres and local pubs.
According to the BBC, the first community to benefit from the freebie is going to be a North Nottinghamshire village of Gringley-on-the-Hill, which is due to get 30 dongles from Three (3).
This is however a double-sided good deed, as firstly the company will help rural communities to get online, and secondly it will demonstrate the strength of Three’s network thus throwing hints at Ofcom which is soon to auction radio spectrum.
Three (3)’s CEO, Dave Dyson, was reported as saying:
“We’ve built the UK’s most extensive 3G network using high-frequency spectrum, if we gain access to low-frequency spectrum like 800Mhz we will be able to significantly improve both indoor and outdoor rural coverage for the UK’s smartphone and mobile broadband users. Low-frequency spectrum on a network as big as ours is a real notspot-killer.”
The 800MHz band is expected to be freed up in 2012 to be used for mobile broadband services solely, however at the moment it is still used for analogue television signals.
