German telecoms company 1&1 has conducted the first live test of its in-deployment 5G network as it seeks to become the country’s fourth mobile network operator (MNO). In an announcement on its LinkedIn page, the firm said it started the first ‘friendly user test’ under real conditions in July and achieved speeds of over 1Gbps along with stable data transfers of around 8TB per customer within 24 hours. 1&1 expects to launch 5G services for home customers by the end of this year, with mobile 5G for smartphone customers expected to follow in mid-2023.
At present, 1&1’s MVNO customers use the mobile networks of Telefonica (O2) and Vodafone, but the signing of a national roaming agreement with Telefonica in May 2021 will enable 1&1 to offer its customers nationwide coverage during the construction phase of its new fully virtualised mobile network which will be based on OpenRAN technology. According to its rollout obligations, 1&1 must reach half of the German population with 5G by 2030.