Grid expansion exceeds the specifications
According to Deutsche Telekom, 5,000 new mobile sites have been put into operation since the last frequency auction in 2019. In addition, the capacities of existing stations were expanded. The city-states have an even greater supply rate of 99.6 percent. The 5G expansion is also well advanced: 95 percent of the people in Germany can now theoretically use 5G. To surf the 5G network, you need a 5G-enabled smartphone and a corresponding tariff.
Overall, Telekom is above the Federal Network Agency’s specifications for network expansion. Accordingly, 98 percent of the population had to be supplied with an LTE speed of at least 100 megabits per second by the end of 2022.
“White spots”: Last gaps should give way
Despite the high supply rate, there are still so-called “white spots” in Germany. These are places where there is neither LTE nor 5G reception. The group has closed almost 1,500 such “white spots” since the last frequency auction. In November 2021, Telekom, together with the federal states and the Federal Network Agency, drew up another list of 500 locations without broadband coverage, of which 296 are now covered. According to the group, a number of the remaining areas already have a basic supply of mobile Internet. This was possible because frequencies from the 900 megahertz range were reallocated to LTE last year. Where necessary, new mobile phone masts are also being built.
Finding a location is often difficult
All types of locations are required to enable reception in an underserved area, including on roofs or fields. Resistance against new radio masts is often formed by the local population. Deutsche Telekom therefore intends to advertise new locations with posters in the near future.
A Verivox survey in October 2022 showed that a total of 19 percent of Germany is undersupplied. Most of the gaps are in Bavaria. In addition, the level of supply is lowest for O2. “Slow approval procedures and a complicated search for a location are still the main reasons for undersupply,” says Jens-Uwe Theumer, Vice President Telecommunications at Verivox. “Even the federal mobile communications infrastructure company has not been able to do much to change the fact that it often takes two years to build a mobile communications mast.”