Dead spots along the railway line mean that travelers repeatedly lose connections while surfing or making calls. Bahn and Telekom now want to remedy the situation.
The entire Deutsche Bahn route network is to be fully supplied with the Deutsche Telekom mobile network by the end of 2026. Both companies and Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) announced this on Wednesday in Berlin.
Telekom intends to continuously supply the 7800-kilometer main traffic routes, on which all ICE trains and the most important IC trains, with a data rate of more than 200 megabits per second (Mbit / s) by the end of 2024. The 13,800 kilometers of “high-volume routes” are to be served at this speed by the end of 2025.
Both companies agreed that Telekom will expand its mobile network on Deutsche Bahn’s rail lines as soon as possible. Existing gaps are to be closed, the performance of the network is to increase significantly. Both companies are jointly investing hundreds of millions of euros to implement these goals.
Travelers who have signed a mobile phone contract with Deutsche Telekom will benefit directly from the announced mobile communications initiative. The situation is also indirectly improving for passengers who use the networks of the three Telekom competitors Vodafone, Telefónica and 1 & 1. You can use the WLAN on board the trains, which is also connected to the Internet via the Deutsche Telekom network.
The third expansion phase, which was agreed by Deutsche Bahn and Telekom, by the end of 2026, comprises the 11,800 kilometers of regional routes, which make up around a third of the entire Deutsche Bahn route network. Deutsche Telekom wants to provide at least 100 Mbit / s here. On some regional routes, passengers will have reception for the first time. In the coming years, the supply will then be continuously adapted to the current state of the art.
In order to achieve the ambitious goal, which goes beyond the requirements of the Federal Network Agency from 2019, Telekom will be putting around 800 new cell phone sites into operation in the coming years. In addition, the capacity is to be expanded at several hundred locations.
Deutsche Bahn, in turn, wants to provide even more space and fiber-optic infrastructure along the rails and offer services relating to planning, approval and construction processes. Deutsche Bahn is also working to ensure that mobile radio signals get better into the interior of the trains. So-called repeaters are used for this, with which the radio signal from the environment is brought into the trains.
According to the Allianz pro Schiene, the entire rail network of all railways in Germany currently covers a route length of around 38,400 kilometers. Deutsche Bahn (DB Netz AG) is by far the largest network operator (33,400 km).
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