Germany’s biggest telco, Deutsche Telekom, has stated that it would not be able to hit its rural coverage targets for 5G and LTE mobile phone services, if it was forced to stop using equipment from Chinese vendor Huawei.
According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Deutsche Telekom board member and general manager, Dick Wossner, said that his company needed the flexibility of working with a range of vendors, in order to hit its minimum service obligations as it looked to deploy around 2,000 base stations across the country.
“We also need Huawei,” he said. If Huawei’s antennas are installed in an area, Ericsson equipment cannot be used there and vice versa,” he explained. “[If Huawei were to be excluded] we will not be able to quickly eliminate 5G signal blind spots.”
Deutsche Telekom has said that it will aim to provide 5G coverage to 50 percent of the German population, by the end of 2020.
Source: Huawei Press Release