Telefónica Deutschland / O2 announced that it is accelerating the shutdown of its 3G network in various regions of Germany.
Instead of the originally planned implementation by the end of the year, the company will now convert the majority of 3G sites as early as September and carry out the last large-scale shutdowns by mid-November. The company began shutting down the 3G network in individual regions on July 1. In the meantime, this has already been implemented for a third of the approximately 16,000 3G sites nationwide in order to be able to use the freed-up frequencies for 4G. Based on the positive experience to date, the telecommunications provider is now implementing its plan even faster so that customers can benefit from the improved 4G network even sooner.
At the coming turn of the month (August/September), the company will switch off a further 4,500 3G sites, making valuable frequency spectrum available for 4G. Around 2,500 3G sites will follow in mid-September.
For all existing O2 customers who do not yet have a 4G-capable smartphone, O2 is offering attractively priced switching offers. New customers also receive a wide selection of suitable 4G/5G smartphones and tariffs. In addition, the company continues to offer all of its own customers a free SIM swap if they are still using a SIM card limited to 3G. In this way, the company is ensuring that it takes all its customers into the future.
Mallik Rao, CTO, Telefonica Germany
With the complete switch from 3G to 4G, we are setting the course for an even more powerful O2 network as well as a significantly better network experience for our customers," said Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of Telefónica Deutschland / O2. 4G has long been the backbone of digital connectivity. We provide over 99 percent of the population with 4G and are consistently expanding further. In doing so, we are focusing in parallel on our 5G rollout to ignite the digitalization turbo in the country. We are making 5G available to more and more customers in all regions and offering them two high-speed standards for mobile data usage with 4G and 5G.
