Everything you need to know about Three

Three sit alongside O2, Vodafone and EE as one of the Big Four mobile network providers in the UK.

They own a lot of 4G spectrum, and other smaller ‘virtual’ mobile networks like iD Mobile piggyback on their signal to offer their own bundles.

Three are owned by Hong Kong consortium CK Hutchinson. They were the first network to offer 3G way back in 2005.

What can you get with Three?

Three’s main sales pitches are SIM Only deals with large data bundles. For mobile broadband, they still offer 3G deals with speeds up to 14.4Mbps, but these have been largely superceded by 4G speeds and data allowances.

Three sell mobile broadband mostly using Huawei’s nifty bit of hardware, the E5573bs-322 4G Mobile WiFi unit. They’ve branded it ‘MiFi’ because, well, ‘Mobile WiFi’ is just too many syllables, we guess.

You can get deals from £7 a month for 12 months with no set-up fees but the data allowances start small at 1GB a month. There are much more generous bundles if you dig a little deeper.

For £12 a month you can get 5GB of 4G data a month on a 24 month contract, but if your budget stretches up to £17 a month you can get a far more realistic 40GB a month limit using a SIM Only deal. Three’s top of the range mobile broadband deal comes with the Huawei HomeFi hub which can connect up to 32 devices at once, and starts with 40GB of data for £24 a month.

Not sure if Three is right for you? Have a look at what else you could get with our best broadband deals and compare before you order.