Tim Höttges: Developing the best 5G network in the world together with politicians and industry

10-10-2018 Philipp Kornstädt

Deutsche Telekom CEO announces an eight-point program – Continued investment of more than 5 billion euros annually in Germany – Mobile network largely 5G-ready.

Timotheus Höttges, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Deutsche Telekom AG.

At a conference of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Deutsche Telekom CEO Tim Höttges today called on representatives from the political and industrial worlds to cooperate with network providers to pave the way for the best 5G infrastructure in the world. “Companies, authorities, and citizens in Germany are entitled to the best-performing digital infrastructure. In urban centers and rural areas alike. Broadband for everyone instead of a digital divide remains the objective. We will only achieve this objective by working together, not by competing with one another,” said Tim Höttges at the BDI conference in Berlin. “Not possible is not an option – gigabit networks for Germany.”

He pointed out: “5G is not simply an additional network; it is an essential element when it comes to adding value to our customer’s products. We need 5G for the Internet of Things and for controlling autonomous machines or smart cities. We are offering industry an opportunity to support the development of a European, standardized platform – contributing expertise and equity. Therefore, we are inviting German industry to a “5G user conference” in order to clarify the specific quality requirements they have for our network in terms of coverage, latencies, and bandwidths. All projects that are critical to successful business in Germany will be given priority.”

Höttges announced an eight-point program which will be presented in Berlin on Thursday at the Telekom Netze-Tag, an event focusing on future networks. The Deutsche Telekom boss repeated his commitment to continue investing around 5.5 billion euros annually in the build-out of broadband networks in Germany. He stated that 22,000 of the 27,000 mobile sites are already 5G-ready thanks to fiber-optic connectivity and the latest single RAN technology. Commercial 5G operation will launch in 2020 when terminal devices are available in sufficient numbers. In the same year, 99 percent of the German population will be covered by LTE technology.