Telefonica O2 to roll out LTE networks by year-end

Telefonica O2 Germany has announced plans to deploy two Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks in the cities of Munich and Halle by the end of the year. The Spanish company has partnered with Chinese equipment vendor Huawei and Finland’s Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for the two pilot networks, which will operate in the 2.6GHz frequency band. At the same time, a further two test LTE networks will be deployed in the rural areas of Ebersberg (located east of Munich) and Teutschenthal (west of Halle). The rural networks will operate in the so-called ‘digital dividend’ 800MHz frequency band. Deployment of the four networks is slated to begin in September. As previously reported by CommsUpdate, Telefonica O2 Germany secured two paired 5MHz blocks in the 800MHz band for EUR1.212 billion, as well as four blocks of spectrum in the 2.6GHz band, in the Federal Network Agency’s (FNA’s) spectrum auction, which concluded in May 2010.