Vodafone Germany said it planned to offer download speeds of up to 375 Mbps on its LTE network in 50 cities this year, as part of a broader plan to increase cable and mobile broadband speeds across the country.
The operator, which said it invested about €5 billion ($5.6 billion) in its network within two years, noted that its LTE network now covers 87 per cent of Germany's landmass with speeds up of to 225 Mbps. The number of LTE customers now amounts to 7.7 million.
In 2017, it said that the higher 375 Mbps speeds would be available to customers in all major cities. It added that speeds of up to 525 Mbps would be available "soon", and also said it would offer speeds of "more than 1 Gbps" in selected locations at the end of 2016.
The company further noted that it also provides voice-over-LTE services (VoLTE) on its network with a call dropout rate of just 0.44 per cent. It said it has focused on increasing network capacity in sports stadiums, shopping centres, railway stations and airports as well as along motorways and railways.
Vodafone Germany has also been investing in its cable assets following its acquisition of Kabel Deutschland. It said more than 13 million households now have access to cable broadband speeds of 200 Mbps.
Vodafone competes with just two mobile network operators on the German market -- Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica Deutschland -- after Telefonica acquired E-Plus and merged it with O2 Germany.
This highly competitive market has also seen a strong focus on fixed and mobile convergence: Vodafone boosted its cable assets through the Kabel Deutschland purchase and now offers combined mobile, fixed Internet and TV plans under Vodafone Red One plans.
Deutsche Telekom has also heavily promoted the MagentaEINS fixed and mobile plans, while O2 Germany now offers O2 Blue One converged plans.
For more:
- see this Vodafone Germany release (in German)
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