Deutsche Bahn (DB) and Deutsche Telekom (DT) are investing hundreds of millions of euros to provide full mobile coverage across all of Germany’s long-distance and regional rail routes.
The companies have agreed that DT will expand its mobile network on the DB railways as quickly as possible, closing existing gaps and significantly increasing network performance.
The DB route network covers a total of 33,400 km – 7,800km of which are main routes on which all ICE and the most important IC trains run. DT wants to supply these routes with a data rate of more than 200Mbit per second by the end of 2024.
On a further 13,800km of routes, on which more than 2,000 passengers travel per day, DT also wants to offer a data rate of more than 200Mbit per second by the end of 2025.
DT plans to supply all other routes with a data rate of more than 100Mbit per second by the end of 2026.
In order to improve its network, DT plans to put roughly 800 new mobile phone sites into operation and expand capacity at several hundred locations.
DB wants to provide even more space and fibre optic infrastructure along the rails, and is also working to ensure that signal quality inside trains improves.
Andreas Scheuer, Germany’s Federal Minister for Transport and Digital Infrastructure, said:Whether at the train station or in the tunnel, in an ICE or a regional express, the era of 'no network' must come to an end. Mobile surfing and phone calls must be possible anytime and anywhere.
Deutsche Bahn and Deutsche Telekom are leading the way by consistently closing the gaps in the mobile network on all railway lines and noticeably increasing the data rates. This is what the future of train travel looks like.
