The year 2020 is coming to an end and Deutsche Telekom has taken stock of the network expansion over the past twelve months. As Telekom announced on Monday, there has been a significant increase in 5G and fiber optics. The expansion in the fixed network and mobile communications was advanced despite the corona pandemic.
5G available to 55 million people
The fast 5G mobile communications standard is now available to 55 million people in Germany. Around 45,000 antennas were made fit for 5G. It would have benefited people in over 4,700 cities and communities. The telecom antennas mostly transmit on the 2.1 GHz frequency. Even the offshore island of Helgoland and the Zugspitze are already supplied with 5G.
In 26 cities there is high-speed internet via 5G on the 3.6 GHz frequency. More than 1,000 antennas would already be transmitting on this frequency in live operation. This applies to the cities of 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. But you can now also find 5G coverage in places like the Allianz Arena in Munich or Frankfurt Airport. Every second contract or contract extension is currently concluded with a 5G device.
The 5G expansion of Telekom is to be continued in 2021. By the end of 2021, around 80 percent of people in this country should be supplied with 5G. As part of the shutdown of 3G, these locations will be upgraded with 5G by mid-2021. If such a modernization is not possible, at least LTE is available.
The LTE network has also grown: It now supplies 98.6 percent of the population in Germany. This year over 5,000 additional antennas have been installed. In addition, there was a new record high for data volume in mobile communications: around 1.6 billion gigabytes of data flowed through the Telekom network in 2020. The data volume via 5G would also increase steadily.
Corona pandemic caused an increase in telephony and data usage
During the Corona crisis, the fixed network was used more than usual by home office and homeschooling, among other things. The use of telephony and data increased. The call volume during the lockdown phase was on average around 50 percent above normal. The data volume in the fixed network has increased by an average of 30 to 40 percent. The expansion of fiber optics moved into focus at Telekom this year. This year around 600,000 new households were added that can use FTTH. In the previous year, the number of newly implemented FTTH connections was only 270,000. Around two million households could now book a fiber optic connection.
Around two million new FTTH connections annually from 2021
Over 33 million households in Germany can now book a connection with up to 100 Mbit / s. According to Telekom, the connections of more than four million households could be accelerated this year by laying fiber optics and upgrading the technology. In the next step, the fiber optics will be laid inside the house. From 2021 onwards, Telekom plans to set up two million FTTH fiber optic connections each year. Telekom’s fiber optic network in Germany currently has a length of 575,000 kilometers of fiber optics.
In addition to its own economic expansion and the subsidized expansion, Telekom is also relying on cooperation with other providers. It offers its own broadband network to partners as part of wholesale for use. On the other hand, Telekom realizes its products in the networks of other companies. In the future FTTH supply, there are already collaborations with providers such as Deutsche Glasfaser, Süwag or Stadtwerke Münster.
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