At the Mobile World Congress 2014, Deutsche Telekom said it is targeting around 8 million IP-based lines in Europe in 2014.
Claudia Nemat, board member of Deutsche Telekom for Europe & Technology, and Niek Jan van Damme, board member of Deutsche Telekom for Germany, presented the company´s network strategy at the MWC 2014 in Barcelona.
Deutsche Telekom is undertaking immense efforts in various European countries to transform its traditional fixed-line network to one based completely on Internet Protocol (IP). This, in turn, is an important milestone on the Group´s way to creating a Pan-European network that will integrate mobile communications and fixed-line network technology.
“The traffic demands by new mobile access technologies including machine-to-machine and real-time applications require a holistic network approach to improve capacity, efficiency and manage the best-possible customer experience,” said Claudia Nemat.
In Germany, around 2.1 million lines have already been converted to IP.
In 2014, Deutsche Telekom wants to more than double the number of connections converted to IP – and this in continuous operations.
“Our objective is to transform our entire network in Germany to IP technology by the end of 2018. We are doing this to enhance the customer experience through superior products, better customer service and shorter time-to-market with higher speed and less latency,” said Niek Jan van Damme.
In the EU operating segment (without Germany) around 2.7 million lines have been migrated.
Macedonia is now the first country in Europe to have a network that runs entirely on IP technology and to have 100 percent of all customers on that network.
By the end of 2014, Slovakia will be the next market. The following year, Croatia and Montenegro will follow and then Hungary. By the end of 2018 Romania, Greece and Germany are expected to have migrated as well.
At the end of 2013, Deutsche Telekom launched LTE in almost all of its markets. By 2016, Deutsche Telekom will be able to provide LTE to its customers at every second base station across Europe.
“Today I can say that we have reached a point in the LTE rollout in Germany where our customers can use LTE in over 150 cities with speeds up to 150 megabits per second,” said Niek Jan van Damme.
300 megabits per second will be the next milestone. In a test last week in the German city of Alzey Deutsche Telekom reached even speeds of up to 580 MBit/s.
Deutsche Telekom also presented a hybrid router at the MWC. The router is a smart mix of technologies. It bundles, concentrates and distributes bandwidth without customers having to do anything. Market entry will be at the end of 2014.
