Telefonica Germany announced that it will be starting its Germany-wide consolidation of the UMTS and GSM networks of O2 and E-Plus in January, as the company presses ahead towards becoming a leading digital telco. The network integration project is expected to take five years to complete.
The company also said that it will continue to rapidly expand its LTE network and plans to enable joint LTE use from mid-2016. Customers will thus benefit from even better network coverage, which combines the strengths of the O2 network in LTE with those of the E-Plus network in UMTS, said the operator.
According to Telefonica Germany, the network integration in 2016 will focus on the densely populated urban areas, maximizing the number of customers with access to the joint network with the aim of reaching 60% of the population.
Markus Haas, Chief Operating Officer of Telefónica Deutschland
Following the successful introduction of national roaming, the integration of the mobile networks is the next key step on the road to even better and denser network coverage. We’re talking about a major technical project that’s unique in Europe and will contribute as expected to the synergies we have promised the market.
