Vodafone Germany stated that the location, positioned at Feuerseeplatz, is the primary of as much as 100 such columns the provider plans to transform throughout town
In sum – what to know:
Stuttgart’s first 5G advert column goes dwell – Vodafone’s new website at Feuerseeplatz makes use of an promoting column to enhance cell sign in central Stuttgart.
Plan for 100 5G columns throughout metropolis – Vodafone and Ilg purpose to equip as much as 100 columns to spice up capability and protection in busy streets and public areas.
Discreet design, quick speeds – Ericsson antennas are embedded contained in the column roof, providing as much as 500 Mbps over a 400-meter radius by way of fiber backhaul.
Germany telco Vodafone has remodeled a standard promoting column in Stuttgart right into a 5G antenna website, marking the launch of a brand new initiative to enhance cell protection in city areas of Baden-Württemberg.
In a launch, Vodafone Germany stated that the location, positioned at Feuerseeplatz, is the primary of as much as 100 such columns the provider plans to transform throughout town.
The upgraded column options built-in Ericsson antennas and expertise constructed into its rooftop and concrete construction. The setup delivers high-speed cell web with obtain speeds of as much as 500 Mbps and a protection radius of roughly 400 meters, utilizing a fiber optic backhaul. The design permits Vodafone to develop its 5G footprint rapidly with out the necessity for giant cell towers, that are more and more tough to website in dense metropolis facilities.
The initiative is a part of the telco’s broader community enlargement technique to make use of present city infrastructure in artistic methods. In Stuttgart alone, there are greater than 600 conventional promoting columns, and Vodafone intends to repurpose as much as 100 of them. The subsequent 5G-ready columns are already deliberate for high-footfall areas, together with the Mercedes-Benz Museum, MHP Area and Unhealthy Cannstatt prepare station.
Michael Jungwirth, member of the administration board at Vodafone, stated: “Individuals’s starvation for information is rising. That is additionally the case in Baden-Württemberg. However discovering new cell phone websites is tough, particularly in internal cities. That’s why we’re now additionally utilizing promoting columns and equipping them with state-of-the-art and notably small 5G antennas. That is considerably quicker than with standard cellphone masts and represents a technical renaissance for the nice outdated promoting column.”
The German telco has already applied comparable deployments in Düsseldorf, the place over 100 promoting columns now function 5G micro-sites. Every of those websites handles 1000’s of every day connections and transmits round 200 gigabytes of knowledge per week.
In October 2024, Vodafone introduced the activation of its 5G Standalone (5G SA) community nationwide. In a launch, the telco famous that this rollout permits all clients with appropriate smartphones to entry 5G companies for each web and calls in any respect 5G places, eliminating the necessity to depend on LTE expertise.
Beforehand, Vodafone Germany operated half of its 5G community utilizing the LTE/4G core infrastructure. With the 5G SA providing, clients will get quicker connections and considerably decrease latency, which is essential for clean, lag-free cell gaming and for functions involving augmented actuality (AR) and digital actuality (VR), the telco stated.
Vodafone Germany had initially launched its 5G SA community in partnership with Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and Oppo.
Vodafone’s 5G SA expertise makes use of frequencies within the 700 MHz, 1.8 GHz and three.5 GHz ranges. Thus far, the corporate has outfitted extra 16,000 of its 26,000 cell stations with 5G expertise. Because of this Vodafone now gives 5G protection to roughly 92% of the inhabitants, with over 90% additionally accessing 5G SA. By mid-2025, this protection is anticipated to achieve 95%.
Vodafone Germany additionally famous that the 5G SA community helps the aggregation of a number of frequencies, enabling speeds in extra of 1,000 Mbps on some smartphones.
Regardless of the broad availability of the 5G SA community, Vodafone stated it continues to run a blended community, working each 5G SA and 5G NSA applied sciences concurrently. This permits smartphones that aren’t but optimized for 5G SA to nonetheless profit from Vodafone’s in depth 5G protection.
