Deutsche Telekom aims to cover Germany with wifi

Operator group Deutsche Telekom is rolling out what it claims will be Germany’s largest ever wifi network. The offering will be launched in the summer of 2013.

The operator has called on the services of wifi provider Fon for its WLAN TO GO offering. Using the service, customers who share their home wifi with other users are granted access to millions of hotspots worldwide and free of charge. Deutsche Telekom added that “special attention” will be given to data privacy and convenience.

This year Deutsche Telekom will also be launching the Fon service through its national companies in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

“The partnership with FON fits perfectly with Telekom’s network expansion strategy,” said René Obermann, CEO at Deutsche Telekom. “The astonishing increase in data traffic calls for network optimisation and expansion, as well as the implementation of new high-speed networks.”

Deutsch Telekom currently has 12 million broadband lines and more than 12,000 hotspots, and by 2016, the operator wants to set up more than 2.5 million additional hotspots in Germany with the WLAN TO GO offering, Obermann explained.

“With our technology mix of mobile communication, fixed lines and wifi, we can gradually introduce our customers to the benefits of internet access anywhere and anytime,” he added.

Fon currently supports more than eight million Fon Spots with more than nine million subscribers in Great Britain, France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Croatia.