For Netzetag 2021, Deutsche Telekom is confirming its expansion plans in areas such as FTTH and 5G and providing an insight into this year’s network statistics. The group wants to accelerate across all sectors and achieve full FTTH coverage by 2030. Standalone operation will be used in the 5G sector in the future.

2 million new FTTH connections next year

The intended targets of the network operator are not entirely new, but they have now been reaffirmed and decorated with existing figures. It has been no secret since the spring, for example, that Telekom wants to reach all homes and companies in Germany with fiber optics by 2030. According to Netzetag, 70,000 kilometers of fiber optics have been added this year for 1.2 million FTTH connections, which is double as compared to 2020. In total there are over 3 million fiber optic connections. Telekom’s fiber optic network spans more than 650,000 km in Germany. (v) Like DSL, telecom competitors can also access the network for a fee. Next year, an average of 2.5 million, 2 million FTTH connections are to be added each year from 2024.

FTTH also in the country

With FTTH expansion, the network operator is promising faster connections to smaller municipalities in rural areas. By 2030, 8 million fiber optic connections are planned for municipalities with less than 20,000 residents. Another 4 million connections are to be added through a joint venture established last month. There is an interim target of 45 lakh FTTH connections in rural areas by 2025.

At least 100 Mbit/s. 34.4 million families with

A graph on fixed networks has a short, extended insight into fixed network statistics for 2021. For example, it says that 34.4 million households can currently book a fixed network tariff with at least 100 Mbit/s. Faster than in 2020, 2 million households were in fixed networks in 2021. 12,000 fiber optic network distributors and 1,800 multifunctional housing The company has relocated and expanded fiber optics to 350 industrial parks.

Cellular network capacity increased by 37 percent

In the field of mobile communication, 5G plays a major role and now its population coverage is more than 90 percent. A quick comparison: With the previous LTE standard, Telecom achieved 99 percent. The cellular network has a total of more than 90,000 antennas in 33,700 locations, including 63,000 antennas with 5G support and 2,200 new locations starting this year. The cellular network has witnessed a capacity expansion of 37 per cent. A new location is added to the motorway every 1.5 days, and a new location is added to the ICE route every 2.5 days. By 2025, 5G should be available on 90% of the maps.

Largest Consumers in Cellular Networks

After O2 recently reported on data consumption in cellular networks, the telco is now presenting the figures. Deutsche Telekom does not come close to the mark of more than 2 exabytes on O2, but 1,830 petabytes are not far from it. O2 named the largest individual users with two soccer games, while in Telekom, the largest users across the platform were named on a daily basis:

Data consumption in cellular network per day

• Youtube: 357 TB
• Instagram: 254 TB
• Facebook: 169 TB
• Netflix: 116 TB
• Tiktok: 95 TB

5G standalone being tested further

Telecoms brought 5G to the region relatively quickly after the introduction of the standard using DSS over older passive antennas with LTE. But expansion is also progressing with antennas operating in the newly acquired frequency range at 3.6 GHz and 3,500 antennas currently estimated by the group. These new 5G antennas are currently in 1,200 locations and bring 5G to the high band in over 140 cities.

In the new spectrum with more bandwidth, telcos also want to offer 5G standalone (5G SA) first, which will also rely on the new 5G core network, while the current 5G non-standalone (5G NSA) still uses the previous LTE core. Is. 5G SA, on the other hand, is already activated in Vodafone, provided the customer decides to do so in the app. Telekom recently tested the standard as part of a live concert in Berlin, in which artists and bands performed at various venues in the city and the performances were mixed via a real-time live stream. In addition to higher speeds, 5G SA is primarily meant to bring low latency and also enables new 5G functions such as network slicing with multiple virtual networks within the physical network for guaranteed bandwidth and latency.

Telecom is waiting for suitable applications

The initial shots for 5G SA didn’t play out on Telekom, even Netzetag, though the company says all locations in the 3.6 GHz range will support this technology with immediate effect. The locations are currently connected to both the existing core network and the new 5G-SA core network. Next year, 5G SA is to be further developed and optimized on other frequency bands. About a possible debut it was said again: “As soon as there are concrete applications for customers, commercial use begins.,