Telefónica said it expects to cover the country’s overall population with 5G by the end of 2025
German telecom operator Telefónica Deutschland/O2, controlled by Spanish telco Telefónica, said its 5G network is operating over 18,000 antennas in the country.
The telco said that this network infrastructure is enabling the provision of 5G services to 75% of the German population. With this expansion progress, the telecommunications provider has exceeded its original target of covering half of the population with 5G technology by the end of this year.
“We are accelerating our 5G rollout and giving Germany a digitization boost. We are bringing the new high-speed mobile network to more and more cities and, above all, rural regions even faster,” the operator’s CEO Markus Haas said.
By the end of July, Telefónica Deutschland/O2 had said it has already deployed nearly 6,000 5G antennas in the 3.6 GHz frequency. The telco said that the 3.6 GHz frequencies are used primarily in densely populated regions. Cities with the higher number of 3.6 GHz stations include Berlin, Munich, Hamburg and Cologne.
The telco also said it is currently focusing on the provision of 5G in rural areas across Germany via spectrum in the 700 MHz band.
The carrier also said it expects to cover the country’s overall population with 5G by the end of 2025.
Telefónica Deutschland had said that it is technically ready to deploy a nationwide 5G Standalone network but noted that the infrastructure will be fully activated as soon as 5G Standalone offers real added value for customers, and when enough devices in the market support 5G SA.
Meanwhile, rival operator Deutsche Telekom previously said that 92% of households in the country can already access the carrier’s 5G network, while LTE coverage reaches 99% of the German population.
Deutsche Telekom also said that it is currently using 3.6 GHz frequencies for the provision of 5G services in more than 2,000 locations across Germany. Some of the cities where the telco offers 5G via 3.6 GHz spectrum are Aachen, Augsburg, Berlin, Bonn, Braunschweig, Bremen, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt/Main, Hamburg, Hanover, Jena, Kiel, Cologne, Leipzig, Ludwigsburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Saarbrücken, Schwerin, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden and Wolfsburg.
Walter Goldenits, managing director of technology at Telekom Deutschland, recently said that that 99% of households in Germany will have access to the telco’s 5G network by 2025.
The telco kicked off the rollout of its 5G network in a limited number of cities across Germany at the beginning of July 2019.
Vodafone also provides 5G services in most regions across the country while local telco 1&1 said it had completed the first live test in its new 5G network in August.
Ralph Dommermuth, CEO of 1&1 parent company United Internet, had said that the telco’s mobile network will initially provide 5G fixed wireless access services (FWA). He said that 5G mobile services will be available for smartphone users around mid-2023.
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