Telefonica Deutschland Holding AG said Monday that Deutsche Telekom AG and Vodafone Group plc have agreed to cooperate in expanding their networks throughout Germany. The expansion will ensure the best possible mobile broadband coverage for customers, especially in rural areas and along roads, railways and rivers, Telefonica Deutschland noted.
The Federal Network Agency, or BNetzA, set the coverage requirements as part of the 2019 spectrum auction, and require investments in the billions from the telecoms.
After investing about 6.5 billion euros ($7.16B U.S.) altogether in the 2019 frequency auction, the cooperation between the three carriers serves to largely close coverage gaps in sparsely populated regions and along traffic routes in an economically viable way, reported RTTNews.
The three telecoms plan to build up to 6,000 new mobile sites in a coordinated manner. Telefonica Deutschland said it signed a letter of intent. The companies invited telecom 1&1 Drillisch to join the group under the same terms.
The joint construction of additional radios and towers, as well as their technical connectivity and use significantly enables the carriers to save time and costs compared to an individual rollout. The companies will set up an equal number of new sites that all partners may use under the same conditions to set up their own antennas and network technology. Further details of the cooperation are to be contractually agreed to by the companies by spring 2020 at the latest. The joint network rollout planning could start soon thereafter.
November 13, 2019
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