Deutsche Telekom said its 5G network already reaches 95% of the country’s population
German carrier Deutsche Telekom (DT) said a total of 8,600 antennas are already providing 5G services over the 3.6GHz band.
The European carrier said in a release that its 5G network has already reached 95% of the country’s population. Deutsche Telekom has previously said it expects its 5G technology to reach 99% of Germany’s population by 2025.
The carrier currently has more than 80,000 antennas transmitting 5G across its premises. Deutsche Telekom says LTE coverage now reaches 99% of German households.
DT said the mobile network capacity of the 824 locations already in operation has also been increased.
Last June, Deutsche Telekom announced that it would use spectrum in the 700MHz range for the first time to offer 5G services. The European carrier said the use of the 700 MHz band will improve mobile coverage in rural areas across Germany.
The carrier offers 5G services over three different frequencies. In addition to the 700 MHz frequency, the telco also offers 5G via the 2.1 GHz and 3.6 GHz spectrum bands.
The news agency said 5G Standalone (SA) is technically available in the 2.1GHz frequency band, adding that commercial use of 5G SA for residential customers will begin as soon as the application is available. .
Deutsche Telekom began rolling out its 5G network in a limited number of cities across Germany in early July 2019.
Earlier this year, Deutsche Telekom announced partnerships with Nokia, Fujitsu and Mavenir in the early stages of commercial open RAN (O-RAN) deployment across Europe.
The German telecom company said Nokia and Fujitsu have been selected as partners for Germany’s first commercial O-RAN deployment from 2023 onwards.
Additionally, Mavenir has been selected as a partner for Deutsche Telekom’s initial multivendor rollout at its European locations starting this year.
Deutsche Telekom also highlighted that the Neubrandenburg site is built on a multivendor O-RAN architecture with open fronthaul support and equipment from Nokia and Fujitsu. Nokia will provide the baseband unit and the O-RAN compliant remote radio unit (O-RU) will be provided by Nokia and Fujitsu.
For further deployment in the telco’s European footprint, Mavenir will provide cloud-native based solutions for 4G and 5G distributed units (O-DUs) and central units (O-CUs), including open fronthaul-based mMIMO radio units. Provide band software.
Deutsche Telekom also said it plans to announce additional partners for O-RAN implementation.
Earlier this month, Deutsche Telekom confirmed that it now owns a 50.2% stake in T-Mobile US, after steadily increasing its ownership in the US company over the years. Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hetges said the company aims to acquire a majority stake in T-Mobile US starting in 2021. DT’s ownership of T-Mobile US was diluted to 43% when the U.S. carrier merged with Sprint, after Sprint owner SoftBank acquired a 24% stake. combined entity.
