Having successfully launched LTE late last year to provide rural coverage, Vodafone Germany is now preparing to deploy its first LTE services to cover city centres.
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Joussen |
Vodafone Germany CEO Friedrich Joussen told the German newspaper Rheinische Post the operator is looking to roll out LTE in metropolitan areas during the second half of the year, with the northern cities of Dusseldorf and Krefeld being selected to be first.
Dusseldorf is an obvious choice for Vodafone Germany given that its development centre is located there, and because of the city's extensive fibre-optic network needed to connect the LTE base stations. Meanwhile, the flat countryside around Krefeld is the reason given for its selection, which should mean fewer base stations to provide wireless broadband to the city's 250,000 residents.
Commenting on the subscription charges for LTE, Joussen says that an entry-level price of around €30 per month is being considered (approximately the same level as fixed broadband pricing), with initial download speeds of between 10Mbps to 30Mbps.
Vodafone is in a race with Deutsche Telekom (DT) to roll out LTE in Germany, with DT already scoring by being the first to announce it had installed 100 LTE base stations in Cologne about a month ago.
For more:
- see this Telegeography article
- see this Telecom Paper article (sub. req.)
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