German operator Deutsche Telekom expects to launch its 5G Standalone (SA) network in the country depending on the use cases for the technology as well as the availability of devices, the company’s CTO Walter Goldenits said in a blog post.
“If the first use cases are still available in 2021, then 5G Standalone will come in 2021. Otherwise we will jump in 2022 at the latest. We are always ready now, we say. And we look forward to when the first applications and devices arrive that we can start with them,” Goldenits said.
The executive noted that the carrier continues to expand its 5G network in the 3.6 GHz band but said that it will take time to deploy it to reach certain areas in the country.
“Of course, 3.6 GHz is actually the fastest there is at the moment because that’s where we have the most spectrum,” said Goldenits, according to a translated version of the post. “But it will take time to deploy these frequencies with even more locations in urban areas. What we do to make the customer experience soar is that we aggregate many bands. It starts with 900 Hz, with 800 Hz, in the future also with 700 Hz, with 1.8 GHz, with 2.1 GHz, with 2.6 GHz – and with 3.6 GHz, wherever we have it. This combination then actually enables speeds beyond a gigabit, as one or the other user in our network has already measured.”
Goldenits also highlighted that the carrier still sees demand for its 2G service, although the company intends to use the frequencies for 4G and 5G. “2G is still an important service for providing voice to the population. We are of course thinking about how we can make this language service as efficient as possible. Because frequencies are a rare commodity. And we would like to use the frequencies for 4G and 5G, especially 5G,” the executive said.
Deutsche Telekom has previously said that its 5G service based on 3.6GHz frequency is already available in around 50 cities across the country, where the telco already deployed over 1,800 antennas.
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.
Deutsche Telekom currently uses two frequencies for 5G. The high 3.6 GHz frequency enables the fastest download speeds. The high-speed 5G is mainly used in densely populated regions. In addition, Telekom uses the longer-wave 2.1 GHz frequency.
The telco said that it expects to deploy a total of 60,000 5G antennas by the end of the year to provide this technology to 90% of the country’s population.
By the end of March, more than 66 million people in around 5,000 towns and cities across Germany had access to the telco’s 5G network.
Currently, Deutsche Telekom operates over 50,000 antennas and provides coverage to 80% of the German population.
