While 5G is live in 5 German cities only 4 cities covered by 4G

This past September, Deutsche Telekom said its 5G service was live in four German cities.   Yesterday, it was reported that only five cities in Germany are fully covered with 4G-LTE.  That’s according to a crowdsourcing test carried out by Umlaut (formerly P3) and published by the newspaper Die Welt.

German network operators Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone and Telefonica provide complete 4G coverage in Dortmund , Offenbach am Main, Erlangen, Frankenthal and Ludwigshafen get. In those cities, all households and the entire area have full 4G access.

According to the report, the city states of Hamburg , Bremen and Berlin are at the top of the federal states . Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate and Brandenburg are at the bottom of the list. Across Germany and across all three network operators, the Umlaut company rated the mobile network coverage in Germany with 914.5 out of a possible 1,000 points. 1000 points correspond to a full supply.

“The German networks are better than their reputation,” said umlaut telecommunications expert Hakan Ekmen.

In terms of federal states, the city-states of Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin rank at the top of the list for 4G coverage, according to Umlaut, while Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate and Brandenburg are at the bottom of the ranking.

The data collected included the quality of the signal of the network operators and the transmission speeds, among others. The study had access to nearly two billion samples from April to September. The data on network quality are measured automatically in the background of the smartphones in more than 900 different apps. The users do not have to carry out speed tests themselves.

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Germany has worse 4G-LTE mobile network coverage than many of its European neighbors, according to a 2018 study by the Aachen-based consulting firm P3 that was seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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References:

https://www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article204565492/Bericht-Nur-fuenf-deutsche-Staedte-komplett-mit-4G-Mobilfunk.html?wtrid=onsite.onsitesearch

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/only-five-german-cities-are-fully-covered-with-4g-study–1321161  (on-line subscription required)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tech-ifa-deutsche-telekom/deutsche-telekom-5g-network-goes-live-in-5-german-cities-idUSKCN1VQ0KH

One thought on “While 5G is live in 5 German cities only 4 cities covered by 4G

  1. Uncertainty about Huawei’s future in Europe could be the window of opportunity Nokia needs to regain lost business with Deutsche Telekom

    As the German government continues to sit on the fence regarding Huawei’s place in its 5G infrastructure, Deutsche Telekom finds itself in an unenviable position with regards to its suppliers. In 2017, Deutsche Telekom dropped Nokia as a supplier, replacing them with Ericsson. Since then, Deutsche Telekom has been reliant on Huawei for around 70% of its 5G infrastructure, with Ericsson taking the remaining 30%. However, there are fears that the German government could take a position similar to that assumed by the UK last month – namely, limiting Huawei’s presence in the peripheral network to 35%– and meeting this cap would be a significant challenge for Deutsche Telekom. To mitigate this, a return for Nokia could be on the cards. “As one of the major European manufacturers, Nokia is of strategic importance to Deutsche Telekom,” said Claudia Nemat, Deutsche Telekom’s head of technology and IT.“It is well known that Deutsche Telekom is pursuing a multi-vendor strategy so that we are not dependent on just one supplier. This is an elementary part of our security philosophy.” However, documents written between July and November last year and leaked to Reuters show that Germany’s largest telco still consider Nokia to be the worst performing supplier in 5G. According to a briefing note prepared for Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Hoettges for a meeting back in July, Nokia “must step up” if it is to secure a future relationship with Deutsche Telekom. Nokia’s struggle with 5G is well known, a situation which it blames on misjudged chipset sourcing. Nonetheless, it seems Nokia is best poised to benefit from any potential Huawei-related fallout from the ongoing geopolitical situation. Samsung is also on Deutsche Telekom’s radar, but it is unclear if they could plug a gap left by Huawei as efficiently as Nokia in the short-term. Also in the news:Deutsche Glasfaser to be acquired by EQT, Omers InfrastructureEricsson out of MWCStripping Huawei from the core throughout Europe will cost Vodafone €200m

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