Massive dead zone could hit millions of German customers

Vodafone warns of a massive dead zone that could affect up to four million customers in Germany. Suddenly they could find themselves without fast internet, so the fear of the Germany boss of Vodafone.

Vodafone: Millions of customers are threatened with LTE deadlock

Hannes Ametsreiter, head of Vodafone in Germany, warns of one in an interview huge dead zone, which could affect several million people in Germany. In rural areas in particular, people would then be “digitally left behind”, according to his gloomy prognosis. The background to this is the expiring rights of use for some important LTE frequency ranges.

If Ametsreiter has its way, the upcoming frequency auction, which is planned for 2023 or 2024, could drastic consequences for users in Germany to have. If the frequencies that will expire in 2025 are auctioned again, there is a risk of LTE dead spots. The mobile networks in Germany could even become “significantly slower” overall (source: Editorial network Germany).

The Vodafone boss is now calling for the frequencies not to be auctioned off again, but for those Easy to extend usage rights. Here he envisions a period of five years in order to be able to create nothing less than “excellent networks” in Germany. Deutsche Telekom would prefer not to auction the frequencies again. An extension of the usage rights for important LTE frequencies is also envisaged here.

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Vodafone: No, competition makes costs rise

According to Ametsreiter, the currently available frequencies are only sufficient for the three existing networks of Vodafone, Deutsche Telekom and o2 (Telefónica). In the event of a renewed auction, however, a fourth company would bid with 1 & 1 (United Internet). That would be the planned auction “Extremely expensive” make.