The 5G expansion at Vodafone in Germany is making better progress than planned. “Our technicians are building 5G even faster – despite the Corona crisis,” said Vodafone technical director Gerhard Mack on Thursday. The Telekom competitor had originally planned to use 3000 5G antennas around 10 Serving millions of people. “We have already achieved this first expansion goal,” said Mack of the dpa. By the end 2020 you will reach 15 millions of people with 5G, next year then 30 Millions.

As Telekom also sets Vodafone is not only offering the auctioned frequencies in the 3.5 GHz band, which enable up to 1 GBit / s, but is also switching to a different spectrum. The network operator also uses 1.8 GHz frequencies, especially in cities, and achieves speeds of up to 500 Mbit / s. In rural areas, Vodafone also uses 700 MHz frequencies and thus reaches up to 200 Mbit / s. Telefónica, which have started the 5G expansion, will also use different frequencies for 5G.

Dynamic Spectrum Sharing On these Frequencies 5G shares the existing frequencies with LTE (4G). The process called Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) enables parallel operation of 4G and 5G in one cell on the same frequency. Thanks to DSS, network operators can quickly expand 5G across the board because a software update is enough and no hardware has to be installed on the masts. In addition, with 5G, the signaling with the core network takes place via an LTE anchor frequency: The connection is established via 4G, the data transmission then via 5G.

Der The catch is that not all 5G smartphones available on the market can cope with every combination of 5G and LTE anchors. Especially first generation devices like the Samsung Galaxy S 10 5G or Note 10 5G, but also some current mid-range smartphones with 5G cannot cope with all frequency combinations that German network operators use. With such devices, 5G is usually only available where the network operators use their 3.6 GHz frequencies. However, the c’t test has shown that even this cannot always be relied on.

“Technically, the introduction of a new generation of mobile communications is extremely demanding, because the various new 5G smartphones also have to learn how to handle the different frequency combinations, “admits Mack. The combination of 3.6 and 1.8 GHz used by Vodafone would be supported “by most 5G smartphones on the market,” emphasizes the company. This must, but not necessarily, apply to rural areas, where 700 MHz is used.

(vbr)