CAPTION: Thanks to a co-operation between Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, cell phone customers in rural areas in Germany will no longer end up in a dead zone as often as they used to. (picture alliance /dpa/ Oliver Berg)
Thanks to a co-operation between Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone, cell phone customers in rural areas in Germany will no longer end up in a dead zone as often as they used to. It has been possible to close more than 2,000 "gray spots" in Germany since last year due to the two companies allowing each other to use the other's antennas via "network sharing," they announced. This is evenly divided between Telekom and Vodafone sites. So, customers who use, for example, the Vodafone network, now have 1,000 fewer gray spots nationwide. The term "gray spot" refers to the fact that only one of the three German network operators has a signal there - customers of the other two have no 4G reception at those locations.
According to the Federal Network Agency, the gray spots still cover 6.44 percent of Germany. This figure is from January. Last October, it was still 0.36 percentage points higher. The companies did not disclose how large the area is that no longer counts as gray spots because of the cooperation between Vodafone and Telekom. They said that 2,000 sites had been activated between summer 2021 and March 2022. By summer of this year, a total of about 1,000 more will be added as planned.
Telekom and Vodafone had already announced the alliance in 2020. However, the Federal Cartel Office had reservations at the time - as a result, the two companies announced that they would also open antennas to Telefónica (O2), and the two-party pact became a three-party alliance with cooperation between these three companies. This in turn placated the Bonn-based competition watchdog.
The co-operations with Telefónica have not yet reached the same stage in terms of joint antenna use. Rather, preparations are underway for the implementation. A Telefónica spokesman said that the first sites would be activated as part of the co-operations in the coming months. A total of about 2,000 company-owned antenna sites would be made free - some of them to Telekom and some to Vodafone. In return, Telefónica will get access to the same number of antenna sites of its competitors.
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