Vodafone Germany to launch HTC Velocity, first German LTE smartphone

Vodafone Germany continues to build its LTE subscriber base, which has reached over 100,000 in the last few weeks. However, the operator will soon launch the first LTE smartphone in Germany in a bid to provide a significant boost to the existing data-only user numbers.

HTC Velocity 4G

The smartphone, which could become available this month, will be the Android-based HTC Velocity 4G which is already in use in the United States on AT&T Mobility's LTE network as the HTC Vivid. The HTC Vivid runs on the Gingerbread version of Google's Android platform and sports a dual-core 1.5 GHz processor, 4.5-inch qHD display, 8-megapixel camera capable of recording 1080p HD video and 16 GB of internal memory. Vodafone did not announced a price and release date for the device.

Vodafone Germany said that its current LTE network, which has around 1,800 base stations and covers nearly 9 million POPs, is meeting the licence conditions imposed by the regulator in terms of providing LTE access to more than half of the designated "black-spot" locations.

However, Computerwoche says that many of Vodafone's LTE base stations are installed in rural areas to provide a DSL-like service using the 800MHz spectrum. The report claims that Dusseldorf, where Vodafone has its head office, is the only large city where the company is providing comprehensive coverage using the 2.6GHz band. Vodafone said it will support the launch of the Velocity in all areas where LTE is available.

In its third-quarter results, Vodafone said that mobile data revenues in Germany increased over 22 per cent year-over-year to €459 million, while overall mobile service revenues rose by 1.2 per cent to €1.7 billion.

For more:
- see this Teltarif article (translated via Google Translate)
- see this ComputerWoche article (translated via Google Translate)
- see this Engadget post

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