Mobile communications for rail customers Network coverage further expanded
Network expansion along railway lines is progressing for Deutsche Telekom customers. Deutsche Bahn is also working together with its Telekom competitors.
This man is mobile in a double sense.
(Image: Deutsche Bahn)
Mobile phone reception for Deutsche Telekom customers along the German rail network is said to have improved further. According to Deutsche Bahn, at least 200 Mbit/s bandwidth is available on 99 percent of the 7800 kilometers of main transport routes on which ICE and IC trains run. This is 12 percentage points more than at the beginning of the cooperation with Deutsche Telekom in 2021. The partners have now achieved the targets agreed at the time two years earlier than planned. To achieve this, 470 new mobile masts have been built and 1900 modernized.
According to a statement from Deutsche Bahn, 300 Mbit/s and more are available on 95 percent of the main transport routes. The coverage on 13,800 kilometers of track with more than 2,000 passengers per day with 200 Mbit/s has increased from 73 to 94 percent.
Vodafone and Telefónica
Since April 2022, Deutsche Bahn has also been cooperating with Vodafone similarly to Deutsche Telekom. Vodafone wants to provide the 7800 kilometers of main transport routes with at least 225 MBit/s in the LTE network by mid-2025. By then, Vodafone wants bandwidths of at least 125 MBit/s on the routes with the most passengers. To achieve this, Vodafone plans to build 160 additional new mobile stations and modernize around 1,000 existing ones, it said in April 2022.
Meanwhile, 83 percent of the main routes are covered with at least 225 MBit/s and 90 percent of the high-traffic routes with at least 125 MBit/s. Vodafone informed heise online that 95 percent of secondary routes are covered with 100 MBit/s.
In the GINT project, Deutsche Bahn is working with O2/Telefónica to improve mobile phone reception for the company's customers. This involves the installation of new radio masts by the radio mast operator Vantage Towers. In April of this year, the parties involved expressed their satisfaction with the progress of the project to date.
The network operators are obliged to provide network coverage of at least 100 megabits per second along railroad lines and highways. However, an expansion must be legally and actually possible, according to the specifications of the Federal Network Agency. For secondary railroad lines, 50 MBit/s is prescribed. On these 12,000-kilometer routes, coverage for Telekom customers with 100 MBit/s was most recently 96 percent, compared to 83 percent three years ago.
(anw)
