Which mobile operator has the best network in Germany?
The specialist magazine “Chip” measured the quality of networks in cities and in rural areas, with LTE and 5G usage. The result: Telekom wins ahead of Vodafone – both networks receive very good marks. O₂ only got a good rating, but the Telefonica subsidiary is still making progress, according to the testers.
What has improved:
► The LTE expansion is progressing, even if there are still dead spots. In the O₂ network, customers received an LTE connection on 93.7 percent of the area covered in the test. Vodafone (95.6%) and Telekom (97.2%) were even better.
► The average transfer rate for data transmission with LTE has increased significantly in all networks compared to the previous year. According to the “Chip” testers, the mobile networks benefit from the 3G shutdown – the radio spectrum can now be used for LTE.
At the top of the LTE speed was Telekom (from 73.73 to 113.69 megabits per second), closely followed by Vodafone (48.20 to 108.59 Mbit / s) and O₂ (34.52 to 65.34 Mbit / s).
► When it comes to expanding fast 5G mobile communications, Telekom is ahead of the curve in cities, with 95.34 percent (Vodafone 85.21%, O₂ 43.76%). However, you have to know that with the 5G expansion, Telekom also uses frequencies on which data is not transmitted faster than with LTE.
The 5G data turbo with theoretically up to 1 gigabit per second is only available in the frequency range around 3.6 gigahertz. Here, Telekom achieved an availability of 42.65 percent in the cities, just ahead of O₂ (41.85%) and well ahead of Vodafone (22.45%).
But: O₂ is the only provider to slow down the 5G network to 3.6 gigahertz – a maximum of 500 Mbit / s is possible. In the Telekom network, the fastest 10 percent of all measurements were above 754 Mbit / s, Vodafone achieved 664 Mbit / s and O₂ 414 Mbit / s.
What the testers noticed negatively:
► LTE coverage is poor or non-existent in remote regions. The testers noticed this particularly in the O₂ network.
Example Hessen: red areas have no LTE coverage, blue areas have LTE (white areas: not enough measurement data)
► Due to the different expansion strategies for 5G, there were clear differences between the providers outside the cities. With O₂ a 5G connection was only extremely rarely available (10.27%), Telekom (82.31%) and Vodafone (67.74%) were significantly better here.
But: The fast 5G network around 3.6 gigahertz was only available in rural areas in the rarest of cases. Here Telekom (6.64%) and Vodafone (7.12%) were even slightly worse than O₂ (8.77%).
► Telephone calls are still breaking off when ICE train rides. It happened particularly often when calling via WhatsApp (Telekom: over 13% of calls, Vodafone and O₂ over 17%).
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