Germany’s Federal Network Agency (FNA, known locally as the Bundesnetzagentur or BNetzA) has published the draft terms for its planned auction of 5G mobile frequencies.
The draft outlines coverage obligations for the 2100MHz and 3.6GHz licence winners, including a requirement to supply at least 98% of households with speeds of a minimum of 100Mbps by the end of 2022. By the same date, 5G spectrum holders will be obliged to provide speeds of 50Mbps on railway routes, as well as roll out 500 5G base stations each and commission a further 500 base stations to enable 100Mbps speeds in so-called ‘white spot’ unserved rural areas. The regulator has, however, ruled out a commitment to allow national roaming, with the FNA’s President Jochen Homann stating: ‘As far as national roaming is concerned, we are opening the door for companies to cooperate in underserved areas … It is not legally possible to oblige network operators to make their networks available to other providers, so we say very clearly that companies need to negotiate.’
The proposed rules will be reviewed by the regulator’s Advisory Council on 24 September; a final decision is set to be made in November with the auction slated to go ahead in Q1 2019.
