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According to the current CHIP network test 2020 the quality of the three mobile networks has increased massively compared to the previous year. The most significant improvement was achieved by Telefónica Deutschland (O2), which among other things developed the mobile network for the new Aldi annual tariffs is provided. O2 achieved an overall rating of "good" (1.59), which represents an improvement of 25 percent over 2019.
In a Comment writes Mallik Rao, Chief Technology & Information Officer of Telefónica Germany: "Our O2 network is undergoing change. We will continue to invest extensively in our network in the coming months". At the end of 2021 Telefónica Deutschland will Disable 3G network and upgrade some 18,000 sites to 4G and 5G technology.
Telekom again with overall victory
The already good quality in the mobile phone networks of Telekom and from Vodafone the groups improved by 5 and 7 percent. In 2020, Deutsche Telekom again won the overall victory for the eleventh time in a row. Vodafone is in second place in the overall ranking.
However, despite the significant increase in quality for all providers, there are still major gaps in LTE availability, especially in rural areas. Telefónica Deutschland has only 78.7 percent LTE coverage outside the cities, Vodafone has 91.5 percent LTE coverage and Deutsche Telekom has 93.4 percent.
5G network causes confusion
Although Huawei already the 5.5G mobile phone standard 5G is hardly developed in Germany. According to Wolfgang Pauler, head of the chip test center, the current situation also frequently presents customers with problems. This is due to the fact that the currently available 5G smartphones cannot use all variants of the 5G standard and that network operators are expanding two different 5G versions in parallel. Real fast 5G connections are therefore only available in a few regions in Germany, while in most locations a 5G version has been upgraded that only slightly exceeds the speed of 4G.
Good 5G network coverage at Deutsche Telekom
Along the test routes used by the CHIP editorial team, Deutsche Telekom achieves 95.3 percent 5G network coverage in cities and 80.6 percent on rural roads. Vodafone's coverage is significantly lower at 43.8 percent in cities and 14.7 percent in rural areas. The test also revealed that the frequencies around 3.6 GHz, which enable data rates of up to 1 Gbit/s, are hardly offered by either network operator. Instead, a 5G connection is often handled via Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). This involves sharing frequencies with the LTE network.
