Residents in the German city of Cologne now have access to LTE services after Deutsche Telekom's domestic subsidiary, Telekom Deutschland (TD), switched on its city-wide network.
TD, which is vying with Vodafone Germany for leadership in LTE metro-area coverage, said it invested €5 million to deploy 100 base stations connected by 120km of fibre cable. The 1800MHz network is designed to provide 100Mbps download speeds to all inner city areas of Cologne.
The company says it will be offering residents a free subscription to its "Web'n'walk Connect XXL'" package for three month, after which they'll be asked to pay a monthly charge of €62.98 (excluding VAT) with a maximum download speed of 42Mbps. A Speedstick LTE USB modem, which can also access 2G and 3G networks, is also required at a price of €4.95.
In response to Vodafone's LTE launch in Dusseldorf and Krefeld last week, TD said it plans to deploy LTE in a further 100 cities throughout Germany during the coming months. The company said it will also introduce this autumn an LTE tariff--which appears ready to compete with fixed broadband services--that will including 50GB of data for €89.95 per month.
TD also revealed it will shortly start LTE trials with business subscribers in Munich, Frankfurt and Munster using the 1800MHz and 2.6GHz frequency bands.
For more:
- see this Telegeography article
- see this Converge Network Digest article
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