O2 Telefonica now reaches more than 95% of the German population with its 5G service
German carrier O2 Telefónica said it has deployed a total of 1,200 transmitters across Germany during the first half of the year, the telco said in a release.
The company also said it has completed around 3,400 expansion measures in the first half of 2024 to improve its network infrastructure.
“With our network expansion, we are strengthening the digital backbone in the country. We are providing our 45 million customers with an even more powerful network so that they can surf and make calls at any time without any problems – both in the city and in the countryside or at major events,” said Matthias Sauder, network expansion manager at O2 Telefónica.
As a result of the expansion measures, O2 Telefonica now reaches more than 95% of the German population with its 5G service.
The company offers new 5G transmitters in major cities such as Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Bremen, Dortmund, Stuttgart, Leipzig and Rostock, among others.
In October 2023, O2 Telefonica announced the launch of its 5G Standalone (SA) network in the country under the 5G Plus brand. Until this launch, the German telco had been offering 5G services through the NonStandalone (NSA) 5G architecture partly via its LTE/4G core network.
The carrier noted that the new network will enable customers to have access to voice-over-new-radio (VoNR) technology, which enables them to make calls with even better voice quality over the 5G network.
O2 Telefónica said it has already been using the 5G SA technology in 5G campus networks for companies and public authorities since 2020. With this new launch, the company noted that more companies in different sectors such as industry, healthcare and the public sector will have access to improved connectivity.
The carrier’s 5G Plus uses frequencies in the 700 MHz, 1.8 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands.
The telco said it expects its 5G SA service to reach full coverage in Germany by the end of 2025.
Last year, O2 Telefónica and Ericsson had completed a proof of concept (PoC) with the aim of paving the way for the development of 5G cloud RAN technology in Europe.
Ericsson and O2 Telefonica noted that this collaboration “validates the feasibility” of cloud RAN for enterprise and industry-specific use cases as well as fixed wireless access (FWA) use cases.
