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Leonard Dahmen

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Mobile communications is team sport

How fast is the download at Telekom? That's just one factor in a smooth network experience. Read now what makes Telekom's mobile network stand out and why mobile communications is a team sport.  

 A family on the beach is playing soccer.

In mobile communications, it's all about the interplay of many factors. Fast downloads are just one of them. © DTAG

A pass. A spirited kick. The match is turned around. In soccer, it's not the team with the best individualists that wins. It's the team that puts in the best collective performance on the pitch that wins. It's all about the interplay between defense, goalkeeper, midfield and forward line. Mobile communications is also a team sport. Unlike in soccer, the game positions in the mobile network are: availability, download, response time and upload. The new top talent on the pitch: 5G.

1. Lets nothing through: Network coverage

The defense is the foundation on which everything else is built. Sometimes as a four-man, sometimes as a five-man chain. It can be relied on. Our defensive chain is called net coverage. Coverage tells us how much area we can reach with broadband mobile communications. 

The match is decided on the field. And in the case of mobile communications, this field is 357,386 square meters in size - the size of the Federal Republic of Germany. That's the equivalent of 50 million soccer fields! But the fans can rejoice: 90 percent of this area will be covered by the latest mobile communications standard, 5G, by 2024. That's 45 million soccer fields connected to the 5G network. But how many people will Telekom reach with 5G? That is described by another form of network coverage, the so-called population coverage. By the end of the year, it will be 90 percent!

2. Runs at record speed: the download

In soccer, the striker must be one thing above all: fast. The steep pass from midfield into the final third is of little use if I can't reach it. It's the same with the download. How fast you reach your social media on mobile is what decides the game! But there's more: researching thins on the internet ("Oh, that's an offside position!"). Booking your next travels online. Streaming your latest binge adventure on Netflix. Making the next episode of your true-crime podcast available offline. Downloading many gigabytes at once during the new software update... You always need fast downloads. The speed is indicated by the download rate. 

Each of our 5G antennas in the 3,6 GHz frequency spectrum is connected to fiber optics. That means rich data rates. With 5G, up to 1 gigabit per second is possible! The loading bar is then history. In addition to the maximum throughput rate, the capacity of the cell also plays an important role. In other words, how many devices the cell can supply in parallel. The more people are online in the vicinity of the mobile network station, the more important this property becomes. This is not only relevant for large cities, where we supply many people. More and more Internet-of-Things devices also need fast data connections.

3. Sends everything forward: the upload

Good wingers in midfield turn the whole game with a deft cross. Underestimating them has cost many a club a victory. In the same way, the upload is a game changer. If you download a lot of data, you also upload some. If it takes too long, your new meme will be old before it sees the light of day on Instagram. Send pictures. Upload videos. Video calls - all of these require fast uploads. If it's slow, it's annoying. And it takes what feels like an eternity for the photo story from last weekend to arrive on Snapchat. With 5G and stable, high-performance uploads, mobile surfing is a lot of fun.

4. From zero to wow in milliseconds: The reaction time

A goalkeeper needs 200 milliseconds to register a shot on goal. That's fast! It's a matter of fractions of a second. In mobile communications, too. The latency with 5G? Less than 10 milliseconds. That's even faster! And a success factor for gamers, for example. The new 5G Standalone variant improves this latency. "Waiting time" is the wrong term there. Because the experience is equivalent to live communication. In real time! By the way: such low latencies also bring decisive advantages in telemedicine.

Performance across all positions 

In soccer, the team that performs best across all positions wins. Just because a team is good at sinking penalties doesn't mean it will win the Bundesliga. It's the same in mobile communications. It's all about the big picture. Clear voice quality. Fast gaming. Smooth streaming. And so on. A network doesn't just have to offer fast downloads every now and then. It has to deliver consistently.

The fine-tuning of the technology behind the scenes makes a noticeable difference. For the feel-good factor, too. HD Voice, for example, transmits speech crystal clear. Voice-Over-5G will enhance voice quality in the latest mobile communications standard. The 5G SA network will make this possible.

We have rolled out 5G over a large area. On different frequencies. Very quickly and rapidly. In this way, we have made 5G NSA available to large sections of the population. For 70 million people, to be precise. All Telekom customers benefit from this. Because LTE is also experiencing an increase in speed where 5G NSA is already transmitting. Thanks to more frequency spectrum. In the future, 5G SA will make Telekom's current 5G network even better. In all these disciplines, 5G is already playing in the Champions League on Telekom's network.

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