Deutsche Telekom said about a dozen companies were currently testing antenna towers.
German telecoms operator Deutsche Telekom said it was relying on ultra-mobile transmission towers to meet short-term demand caused by festivals and large construction sites.
A few months ago, Deutsche Telekom developed a prototype it called a “mobile mobile base station,” which it said in a statement was being tested by about a dozen companies.
“The call for trials of our ultra-mobile mobile cell base station attracted strong interest from companies across a wide range of industries. This high demand shows that the need for flexible mobile communications solutions also exists amongst corporate customers. It confirms our determination to commercially offer this ‘made in Telekom’ innovation in future,” said Klaus Werner, Managing Director Corporate Customers at Telekom Deutschland.
First trial participants include Swiss construction and real estate services provider Implenia, which will supply 5G and 4G/LTE to a bridge construction site in Bad Lobenstein, Thuringia, for the two-year construction period. The telecommunications company said the construction site in the valley cannot be reached by traditional mobile phone towers in the area.
Deutsche Telekom’s cell towers provide communications services to the construction site. For Implenia, this basic cellular coverage is also the ideal basis for IoT applications that construction companies use to optimize processes and material flows on construction sites. The cell towers are connected to the bridge construction site’s network via fiber optics; however, the German telecommunications operator says it also plans to test satellite connectivity for the solution in future.
The entire mobile radio transmission technology fits into a compact micro-container that is 1.6 metres long, 2 metres wide and 2.6 metres high. The micro-container can be connected to a local power source or powered by other mobile sources. Connection to data networks is possible via fibre optic and radio links, the telco said.
The European operator explained that the solution’s high flexibility makes it ideal for quick temporary coverage for business customers, but also in disaster areas.
Deutsche Telekom plans to launch a commercial offer for the use of the ultra-mobile transmission towers in spring 2024.
Deutsche Telekom recently announced that it plans to launch 5G Standalone (5G SA) services in Germany later this year. Srinivasan Gopalan, CEO of Telekom Deutschland, Deutsche Telekom’s domestic carrier, said the company aims to offer 5G SA to residential customers.
The executive noted that Deutsche Telekom’s enterprise customers are already using the technology with features such as network slicing for live TV transmission in media and 5G campus networks for industry and research.
The company also highlighted that its 5G network currently covers 96% of the German population. Deutsche Telekom’s 5G network has 80,000 5G antennas, of which more than 10,000 transmit in the 3.6GHz band to more than 800 cities and municipalities across the country.
Gopolan said DT’s 5G technology currently offers download speeds of up to 1Gbps and the company plans to provide 5G to 99% of Germany’s population by 2025.
