German carrier Deutsche Telekom said it is focusing on growing internationalization in the Internet of Things (IoT) business with a new deal by its subsidiary Deutsche Telekom IoT with the Bridge Alliance, a business alliance of 35 mobile communications companies in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe.
Bridge Alliance provides connectivity and integrated value-added services, including IoT/M2M, to its members. Deutsche Telekom said it is the first European telecommunications company in this alliance.
“We are pooling the know-how and technical expertise of all members. Together, we always offer our customers the best connectivity solution for their global challenge,” said Dennis Nikles, managing director of Deutsche Telekom IoT. “For companies from the Asian region, it is now even easier to do IoT business in Europe. This is particularly interesting for the growing market of Asian electric vehicles in Europe. But European customers also benefit. A strong global offering – all under one contract, one management and one globally standardized service,” he added.
The carrier explained that local partners in the countries facilitate local customer support.
With this offering, companies can offer and operate their IoT solutions and networked products internationally without having to work out separate solutions with local providers. Deutsche Telekom highlighted it offers global IoT connectivity with one contract, one service team and one access point for easy management of all IoT connections. It also offers a simplified procurement process with pre-optimized contracts and billing, uniform global service level agreements and a single point of contact for customer support.
Some of the Bridge Alliance members include China Telecom, China Unicom, Maxis, Airtel, Telkomsel, SK Telecom, Softbank, Globe, Singtel and stc, among others.
Deutsche Telekom recently announced its tariffs for satellite IoT services. In combination with terrestrial mobile communications via NB-IoT, LTE-M, 4G and 5G, highly reliable hybrid global connectivity is now available, the telco said. Roaming agreements are also in place with over 600 international partners, it added.
Deutsche Telekom recently said that a total of 12,150 of its 5G antennas in 920 cities are currently transmitting on the 3.6 GHz spectrum band.
Around 97% of households can already access Deutsche Telekom’s 5G network, while LTE coverage currently reaches 99% of households across Germany, it added.
Deutsche Telekom expects to launch its 5G Standalone (5G SA) offering in Germany this year. In a previous round-up of its network achievements during 2023, Srini Gopalan, CEO of Telekom Deutschland, which is DT’s domestic operator, said the carrier is aiming at offering 5G SA to private customers.
The executive noted that Deutsche Telekom’s business customers are already using the technology with functions such as network slicing for live TV transmission of media or in 5G campus networks for industry and research.