T-Mobile’s Czech unit aims to kick off commercial operations over its new Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G network in the cities of Prague and Brno, including part of the Prague metro.
In a press release, the mobile operator said that by the end of this year, more than a quarter of the population in both the capital and Brno will be covered by its 5G signal, targeting having around 360 base transceiver stations (BTS) online – double the number it will have on launch. It says that T-Mobile customers located in the ‘wider centres’ of the nation’s two largest cities will need to have a 5G-enabled device and an LTE-enabled SIM card to experience the benefits of connecting via the latest fifth-generation mobile network.
The operator will also start operating the 5G network in part of line C of the Prague metro – namely the line C metro stations at Roztyly, Chodov, Haje, Kacerov, Budejovicka, Pankrac and Prague Povstani – and will gradually expand coverage to a total of 35 stations by the end of the year.
T-Mobile’s 5G NSA network runs on frequencies currently used for 3G (W-CDMA) and 4G (LTE) services, with dynamic spectrum sharing between LTE and 5G, in the 2100MHz frequency band, using 15MHz of bandwidth, and 20MHz of 1800MHz spectrum. It claims its 5G network will achieve real download speeds of up to 500Mbps when used with LTE.