3 Ireland
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| Subsidiary | |
| Industry | Mobile telecommunications, Broadband internet access |
| Founded | July 26, 2005 |
| Headquarters | 28/29 Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2, D02 EY80, Ireland |
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Area served
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Republic of Ireland |
| Brands | 48 Months |
| Parent | CK Hutchison |
| Website | www |
Three Ireland (Hutchison) Limited, formerly Hutchison 3G Ireland Ltd and trading as Three (3), is a telecommunications and internet service provider operating in Ireland as a subsidiary of CK Hutchison. The company launched in July 2005 and provides 3G and 4G mobile phone services. Three's former holding company, Hutchison Whampoa, acquired O2 Ireland in June 2013, and the company was fully merged into the operations of Three Ireland in March 2015.
Three launched on 26 July 2005 as Ireland's fourth mobile network operator behind Vodafone, O2 and Meteor. Service was initially offered as post-paid only, but on 16 May 2006 the introduction of a pre-paid service, known as 3Pay, was announced. A pre-paid mobile broadband service was launched on 29 February 2008 under the name 3Pay Broadband, with vouchers available for durations of one day, one week, or one month. On 13 May 2010, Three announced the launch of the world's first commercial voice and data I-HSPA network.
In August 2010, 3 Ireland admitted it has been overstating its subscriber numbers since 2006. As per its latest released mid year statements about 56 per cent of 3's 554,000 registered subscribers are considered active. This is about 244,000 short of the figure supplied to ComReg.
On 24 June 2013, it was announced that Hutchison would acquire Telefónica's Irish mobile operations, O2 for €780 million, to be merged into 3 Ireland upon completion of the deal. The European Commission approved the merger in 2014. The O2 brand was phased out and its operations fully merged into Three on 2 March 2015.
Three has a licence for operation in Ireland using the access code 083, although numbers can be ported over from other networks.
Three's 3G coverage is made up of a single 2,100 MHz band UMTS network, with claims of 99.5% population coverage and 500,000 subscribers.
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Wikipedia