DT opens the doors for DSL replacement using Huawei LTE gear
DT said that it has now begun accepting customer sign ups for its new LTE fixed broadband service
Published: 6 September, 2010
READ MORE: Germany | Deutsche Telekom | Huawei Technologies | Dongle/Datacard | LTE
Deutsche Telekom (DT) has begun accepting customers signs ups for its 800 MHz LTE rural broadband service, which will be used as a DSL replacement in about 500 locations across Germany. The service was shown working at the IFA conference and exhibition held last week, and DT put out a statement of intent to use 4G to cover 500 DSL service gaps this year and another 1,000 next. A further 500 locations this year will also be reached either by re-configuring UMTS locally or by finally building out DSL to those areas. In total DT will "in fill" 1000 broadband gaps in its network by the end of 2010 using all these technologies.
There has been widespread speculation that UHF spectrum which has signals which penetrate better and travel further, than say DT's 1.8 GHz, and 2.6 GHz bands, may carry too low a payload to too few people, bringing into question the use of LTE in this spectrum. Clearly DT plans to use its 1.8 GHz, and 2.6 GHz spectrum for sustaining higher concentrations of customers in metropolitan areas using far smaller cells, perhaps 1 km across or even using mostly pico and femtocells, and the 800 MHz for long distance rural cells which could potentially be anything between 5 km and up to 30 km wide depending on EIRP. DT but confirms that the rural signals will be configured to deliver a "comparable" experience to existing DSL customers in these 500 German regions.
DT showed off mobile video conferencing in HD at the IFA along with super-fast video downloads and uploads of photos and also send video images from a car moving around the City of Bonn to the show, making it clear that the Huawei network infrastructure which it is using suffers no problems with Doppler effects or roaming.
DT obscurely calls its new product - Call & Surf Comfort via radio - and dedicated it to areas which currently have no broadband access and said that it will offer specially developed home wireless routers for fixed applications of this type.
DT put its first LTE base station into operation in Brandenburg at the end of August 2010 and will build out all 500 regions by the end of 2010.
As DT develops its LTE network it will continue to fill more and more DSL gaps with 4G and will eliminate a further additional 1,000 "gaps" with it in 2011.
As we have pointed out in the past, many carriers in Europe do not have optimal spectrum for LTE, and they are building their LTE network for different reasons. So using UHF spectrum is fine for rural applications, but a full LTE network needs intense investment in the cities with shorter frequencies, and 2.6 GHz is clearly best for this. But that build out could never reach rural communities. LTE in cities may come to rely almost entirely on Pico and Femtocells, in which case city implementations may have to wait until those technologies are better understood.
In Germany's case part of its regulator mandate relates to rural coverage though many cellular experts still arguable that HSPA+ would be a more efficient technology choice in order to make short term profit.
DT said at the beginning of the year it would start user trials in underserved areas, something that Vodafone Germany and O2 in the UK have also started.
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