German carrier Deutsche Telekom said over 87% of the country’s households can now access its 5G network.
In a release, the telco said it has built up 5G capacities at 756 mobile sites across Germany over the past twelve weeks. It has also deployed Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) at the sites for the use of LTE technology.
In addition, Deutsche Telekom has created additional LTE capacity at 478 locations, while 96 new LTE locations were built.
“We are pushing the pace with the expansion of mobile communications,” said Walter Goldenits, managing director of technology at Telekom Deutschland. “We put more than 1,500 new locations into operation every year. In addition, there are LTE and 5G expansions at thousands of existing locations. As part of our massive expansion activities, 5G will become the new standard in Telekom’s cellular network,” the executive said.
Goldenits had recently said that 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.
“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.
Deutsche Telekom has previously said that its 5G service based on 3.6 GHz 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.
The German telco had previously said that it expects to deploy a total of 60,000 5G antennas by the end of 2021 to provide this technology to 90% of the country’s population.
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.
