T-Mobile Austria activated its first 5G base stations on Tuesday, March 26, 2019.
The first twenty-five 5G sites are the municipalities of Feichtendorf (Carinthia), Hochstrass (Lower Austria), Hohenau an der March (Lower Austria), Innsbruck (Tyrol), Kaindorf an der Sulm (Styria), Kalsdorf bei Graz (Styria), Kapfenberg (Styria), Kirchbichl (Tyrol), Loosdorf (Lower Austria), Oberhofen am Irrsee (Upper Austria), Pirka (Styria), Ried im Innkreis (Upper Austria), Seefeld in Tirol (Tyrol), Serfaus (Tyrol), St. Johann in Tirol (Tyrol), Villach (Carinthia), and Wartberg im Mürztal (Styria).
“With investments of 57 million euros in 5G spectrum, T-Mobile is sending a clear signal for Austria’s digital future. This March 26, 2019 is a historic day for our company. We are launching the first 5G network in Austria and offering our first customers mobile broadband with fiber-optic speeds over 5G,” said Andreas Bierwirth, CEO of T-Mobile Austria, on launching the 5G network in Austria. “With 5G, mobile broadband coverage will keep up with fiber-optic network performance going forward, supplying regions where the laying of cables would be complex, slow, and expensive. Instead of connecting households to the internet through wires, 5G will ensure that broadband internet reaches homes through radio transmission. T-Mobile will be investing around a billion euros in total between 2018 and 2021 to guarantee that Austria has a powerful broadband infrastructure, both mobile and landline.”
T-Mobile Austria will give special 5G routers to the first “friendly customers”. The first 5G smartphones are expected by the end of 2019. A greater variety of models and larger numbers of 5G-enabled smartphones and tablet PCs will likely hit the market in 2020.
Austria completes 5G auction in 3.4 – 3.8 GHz band
Austria concluded an auction of 5G spectrum in the 3.4-3.8 GHz band. Licenses were acquired by the three leading operators (A1, Hutchinson, T-Mobile) as well as some smaller players. In total, 438 out of a total of 468 frequency packages (39 packages of 10 MHz each, in twelve regions) were auctioned for a total price of around EUR 188 million. The auction lasted over three weeks.
T-Mobile Austria acquired 110 MHz of spectrum throughout the country (11 packages of 10 MHz each in 12 regions), for a total price of €57 million.
