Deutsche Telekom has signed a letter of intent with Telefónica’s operation in Germany to share infrastructure to improve rural coverage.
The two companies’ aim is to share their active networks to boost coverage in so-called “grey spots”.
“Joint projects like this are becoming increasingly important to network build-out — in both broadband and mobile communication,” said Srini Gopalan, managing director of Telekom Deutschland, Deutsche Telekom’s operating company in Germany.
“Together with Telefónica O2 we can make an important contribution to providing better, uninterrupted LTE coverage in Germany.”
Then two said that, unlike previous joint projects, which also involved Vodafone Germany, such as site sharing or the operator agreement to close white spots, no second separate wireless technology or additional antennas will be installed with this approach.
Markus Haas, CEO of Telefónica Deutschland, said: “Germany needs to step up digitalisation. German consumers and business are demanding rapid progress in mobile network coverage to this end. This requires a concerted effort on the part of all involved. Co-usage of sites is an important step in this direction and a positive signal to Germany’s mobile communications customers.”
Telefónica and Deutsche Telekom said they were in touch with two regulators, the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) and Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency), about the planned collaboration.
Gopalan said: “We’re teaming up with our competition to ensure that even more people in Germany can use a better network. This agreement further attests to our conviction that digitalising Germany works best through cooperation.”
The late 2019 deal that included Vodafone was for passive network sharing at 6,000 new sites which had no coverage. Under that agreement, one operator would build a site and then offer access to the other two.
The deal between two operators is for active 4G network sharing in the 800MHz, covering several hundred existing base stations, mainly in rural areas.