Vodafone Germany also announced that Deutsche Bahn and automobile firms e.GO, Audi and Continental have become its first 5G partners
Vodafone Germany has announced the activation of its first 5G mast in the country, German press reported.
The 5G mast is located in the city of Aldenhoven and covers a 400,000-square meter testing area.
The German carrier also said that railway company Deutsche Bahn and automobile firms e.GO, Audi and Continental have become its first 5G partners.
Vodafone Germany has also carried out a 5G demonstration including a holographic phone call between Vodafone Germany CEO Hannes Ametsreiter in Dusseldorf and a minibus belonging to electric vehicle manufacturer e.GO in Aldenhoven. Ericsson and Intel served as the technology partners for that 5G test.
‘We are the 5G partner of the German economy. We help trains to see dangers. We turn the driver’s seat into a TV couch in the car. We are turning Germany’s industrial halls into smart factories with 5G. And we create new forms of communication with 5G – with holograms we turn boring video conferences into personal experiences,” Ametsreiter said.
Earlier this year, Vodafone Germany opened a 5G testing lab in the city of Dusseldorf. Its 5G Testing Area will determine whether devices like upcoming smartphones, tablets and internet of things sensors are compatible with 5G and with Vodafone’s own 5G network under various conditions.
Other German operators are also getting ready for the launch of 5G services with a number of 5G trials and demos.
Earlier this year, Nokia and Telefónica Deutschland signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop a joint 5G innovation cluster. The two partners said this initiative will allow them to test networks and technologies on the path to 5G.
The innovation cluster will be located at Telefonica’s lab in Munich, Germany. The two companies also said the cluster will be followed by trials in the operator’s live network, currently planned with priority in Berlin with the objective of building a benchmark network with 4.5G, 4.9G and 5G technology.
In September, Telefónica Deutschland and Samsung Electronics agreed to carry out fixed wireless access trials in Germany. Under the terms of the agreement, up to 20 households in the city of Hamburg will test FWA technology during a three-month period. Trials are expected to begin in November this year. Samsung will provide a complete end-to-end millimeter wave solution at 26 GHz. The technology consists of the following components: A virtual core and a 5G radio access unit for Telefónica, and 5G outdoor unit and indoor routers for the customers.
In May 2018, Deutsche Telekom announced the deployment of the first 5G antennas to test the technology in downtown Berlin. The antennas, which are based on 5G New Radio (5G NR), allowed Deutsche Telekom to demonstrate what it claimed to be Europe’s first 5G data connection over a live network. The telco said that it is currently in process to deploy a 5G cluster in Berlin.
The first six commercial antennas had been installed in sites in Berlin’s Mitte and Schöneberg districts for test operations. The telco said that an additional 70 cells are to be installed in the coming months, across a total of more than 20 sites.
Deutsche Telekom’s 5G antennas are using frequencies in the 3.7 GHz spectrum band under a testing license provided by German regulators.
