Telekom Deutschland, the domestic fixed and mobile unit of German telecoms group Deutsche Telekom (DT), has begun the large-scale rollout of LTE in the 900MHz frequency band to improve indoor coverage of 4G services. The first sites have been put in operation in the cities of Bonn, Cologne, Leipzig, Berlin and Stuttgart, and by the end of the year around 4,000 locations will be covered by LTE-900. In May 2015 the Federal Network Agency (FNA) reauctioned spectrum in the 900MHz band, which until then had been used by mobile networks operators for GSM. The frequencies have now been made technology-neutral, enabling operators to use the 900MHz spectrum blocks for mobile broadband deployment.
Telekom has also revealed that it is deploying Single RAN technology to support multiple mobile communications standards (GSM, UMTS and LTE), which will allow new features to be implemented and deployed faster for its customers, as well as prepare the company’s network for 5G.
