Deutsche Telekom launches LTE-M in Germany

Deutsche Telekom completed the rollout of its 5G-ready LTE-M network across Germany and brings its first commercial offers to the market. In Germany, LTE-M is now commercially available in both post-paid and pre-paid IoT offerings, including its Business Smart Connect LPWA and M2M tariffs. To secure interoperability, Deutsche Telekom already completed first certifications of a handful of LTE-M chipsets and modules, thereby enabling faster user time-to-market and connectivity quality.

“LTE-M gives our customers the opportunity to develop new solutions where previous technologies had their limitations,” says Rami Avidan, CEO of Deutsche Telekom IoT GmbH. “The technology is a firm part of our overall IoT network portfolio. It is 5G-ready and therefore future-proof – ideally positioned to drive innovation for the Internet of Things even further.”

LTE-M is an important IoT technology to bridge the gap between the existing 4G offering and NarrowBand IoT. It is also regarded as a future-proof successor of 2G and 3G as those technologies are gradually phased out across the globe. LTE-M enables new use cases across a multitude of industry sectors, most notably in the areas of smart city, wearables, e-health and smart tracking.

The 5G-ready LTE-M technology is a natural extension of Deutsche Telekom’s Mobile IoT strategy. It is specifically designed for IoT connectivity and combines the power-saving advantages of both NB-IoT and earlier LTE technologies: In comparison to NB-IoT, LTE-M offers higher data rates (up to 350 kbit/s), lower latency, connected mobility (i.e. the ability of a technology to do handover between cells), and SMS support. In comparison to legacy M2M technologies like 2G, 3G and standard LTE, LTE-M offers optimized energy consumption and superior indoor coverage, as well as up to a 50% lower module cost. With these characteristics, LTE-M is in a position to address an entirely different set of use cases.

LTE-M is based on the LTE 3GPP standard. It is therefore 5G-ready and only requires a software update in the network. The NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies will continue evolving as part of the 3GPP 5G specifications. This means that all users can leverage existing investments as part of the 5G evolution. The long-term viability of these technologies is therefore secured. 

Deutsche Telekom and its Roaming Partner Orange in France and Belgium have agreed to activate LTE-M Roaming across their respective networks, enabling their IoT customers to take full advantage of the power-efficient technology across borders.

Roaming is available bilaterally between Germany and France as of July 22nd, 2020, Roaming between Germany and Belgium will be added within the next few weeks.

For more information about Deutsche Telekom’s IoT services, please visit iot.telekom.com.