Telekom Deutschland GmbH (formerly T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH) is a German

telecommunications company A telecommunications company is a kind of electronic communications service provider, more precisely a telecommunications service provider (TSP), that provides telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many t ...

owned by

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...

. Telekom offers

landline phone A landline is a physical telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber from the subscriber's premises to the network, allowing multiple phones to operate simultaneously on the same phone number. It is also referred to as plain old ...

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV), also called TV over broadband, is the service delivery of television over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Usually sold and run by a Telephone company, telecom provider, it consists of broadcast live telev ...

and mobile telephony services. It took its current name after Deutsche Telekom's German consumer fixed-line unit T-Home was merged into T-Mobile Deutschland. As of 2023, it had 17 million fixed-line subscribers and 61 million mobile subscribers, making it the largest mobile network operator in Germany.

History

Early mobile phone networks in Germany (1985-1994)

Germany's first mobile-communications services were

radiotelephone A radiotelephone (or radiophone), abbreviated RT, is a radio communication system for conducting a conversation; radiotelephony means telephony by radio. It is in contrast to ''radiotelegraphy'', which is radio transmission of telegrams (messag ...

systems that were owned and operated by the state postal monopoly, ''

Deutsche Bundespost The (, ) was a German state-run postal service and telecommunications business founded in 1947. It was initially the second largest federal employer during its time. After staff reductions in the 1980s, the staff was reduced to roughly 543,20 ...

''. It launched the

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

first-generation First generation, Generation I, or variants of this, may refer to: History * 1G, the first generation of wireless telephone technology * First generation of video game consoles, 1972–1983 * First generation computer, a vacuum-tube computer M ...

C-Netz The Radio Telephone Network C (German: Funktelefonnetz-C, abbreviated as C-Netz), was a 1G, first generation analog signal, analog cellular phone system deployed and operated in Germany (at first West Germany) by Telekom Deutschland, DeTeMobil ...

("C Network", marketed as ''C-Tel''), Germany's first true mobile phone network in 1985. On 1 July 1989, West Germany reorganized Deutsche Bundespost and consolidated telecommunications into a new unit, ''Deutsche Bundespost Telekom''. On 1 July 1992, it began to operate Germany's first

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

network under the name De.Te.Mobil Deutsche Telekom Mobilfunk GmbH. It took over the

car phone A car phone is a mobile radio telephone specifically designed for and fitted into an automobile. This service originated with the Bell System and was first used in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 17, 1946. Overview United States The original equ ...

network activities of Deutsche Bundespost which operated

B-Netz B-Netz was an analog, commercial mobile radio telephone network that was operated by the Deutsche Bundespost in Germany (at first only West Germany) from 1972 until 1994. The system was also implemented in neighboring countries Austria, The Neth ...

(until 1994) and

(until 2000). By the end of 1993, the company had 480,000 customers. In March 1994, the first

SMS Short Message Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile phones exchange short text messages, t ...

was sent over the network.

Privatization and deregulation (1995-2000)

Deutsche Bundespost Telekom was renamed

Deutsche Telekom AG Deutsche Telekom AG (, ; often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a partially state-owned German telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn and the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. It was formed in 199 ...

on 1 January 1995 as part of phase two of the German communications reform. Telekom Deutschland's fixed line operations originated from T-Com, a legal successor to Deutsche Bundespost Telekom. T-Com was created after the German postal reform. The mobile brand name was changed to DeTeMobil Deutsche Telekom MobilNet GmbH (T-Mobil), while the network was named T-D1. The GSM 900

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

frequency band was referred to as the "D-Netz". This deregulation of the German telecommunications industry continued in November 1996, when DT was

privatized Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

and had the largest European IPO at the time, with the stock abbreviation 'DT 1'. In 1998, T-Mobil was assigned 0170 as an additional

area code A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, rea ...

in addition to 0171 by the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Post (RegTP).

2G and 3G network expansion (2000-2010)

In June 2000, T-Mobil became the first mobile network operator in the world to launch a

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), also called 2.5G, is a mobile data standard on the 2G cellular communication network's Global System for Mobile Communications, global system for mobile communications (GSM). Networks and mobile devices wit ...

network. The

network was switched off in the same year. In February 2002, DeTeMobil Deutsche Telekom MobilNet GmbH was renamed to T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH. In July of the same year, T-Mobile launched the

Multimedia Messaging Service Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia ...

(MMS). On 1 March 2007, then

CEO

René Obermann René Obermann (born 5 March 1963) is a German businessman who is chairman of Warburg Pincus International LLC's European operations, and chairman of Airbus SE since April 2020. He was previously (from November 2006 to December 2013) CEO of Deuts ...

announced that the group's brand identity would be radically simplified from summer 2007 onwards meaning T-Home became the universal brand for Deutsche Telekom's fixed-line services. On 19 June 2007, T-Mobile switched on the

High Speed Packet Access High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony, mobile Communications protocol, protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the perfor ...

(HSPA) network in high density connection areas, it allowed download speeds of up to 7.2

Mbps In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mul ...

. In 2008, T-Mobile's

EDGE Edge or EDGE may refer to: Technology Computing * Edge computing, a network load-balancing system * Edge device, an entry point to a computer network * Adobe Edge, a graphical development application * Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...

network was upgraded to allow up to 260 Kbps download speeds.

Brand consolidation and LTE expansion (2010-2019)

On 1 April 2010, T-Home was merged into T-Mobile Deutschland GmbH and the company was renamed as Telekom Deutschland GmbH. On 20 May 2010, Telekom Deutschland participated in the largest German frequency auction to date. On 1 December 2010, Telekom began testing LTE in

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg ( ; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a states of Germany, German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million i ...

and

Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...

. On 5 April 2011,

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

was launched in the ''Call & Surf via Funk'' tariff which was intended as a

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric di ...

alternative for areas which have limited fixed-line speeds.

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

became the first city in which Telekom enabled the 1800 MHz frequency of LTE, with service launched on 1 June 2010. On 2 November 2010, Telekom enabled

HD Voice Wideband audio, also known as wideband voice or HD voice, is high definition voice quality for telephony audio, contrasted with standard digital telephony "toll quality". It extends the frequency range of audio signals transmitted over telephone ...

on their

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

network. On 17 June 2014, Telekom announced that they would not charge for LTE roaming in Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, Poland, Spain, or the United Kingdom.

Deployment of 5G network (2019–present)

On July 3, 2019, Deutsche Telekom launched Germany's first 5G network for customers in Bonn and Berlin.

Wireless networks

The following is a list of known frequencies that Telekom employs or plans to employ in Germany.

References

{{Telecommunications in Europe Deutsche Telekom Telecommunications companies of Germany Mobile phone companies of Germany Internet service providers of Germany German companies established in 1992 Telecommunications companies established in 1992