BERLIN, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom saidon Thursday its 5G mobile network had gone live in five Germancities, timing the launch for maximum impact on the opening dayof the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.
The German market leader paid 2.2 billion euros ($2.5billion) for 5G spectrum at a recent auction and the regulatorhas just unlocked access to the 3.6 Gigahertz band that willpower its initial 5G offering.
Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Bonn and Darmstadt now offer local5G services with bandwidth of up to 1 gigabit per second - fastenough to download a movie onto a smartphone in a few seconds.
Hamburg and Leipzig will follow by the end of the year, with20 German cities to be covered through 2020, Deutsche Telekomsaid in a statement.
"We are bringing 5G to the streets and will orient ourselvestowards our customers' needs," Telekom's chief technologyofficer Walter Goldenits said. "We will go where the demand fordata is greatest."
Rival Vodafone has also announced its 5G rollout inGermany and is challenging Deutsche Telekom on price.
IFA, the world's biggest consumer electronics fair, is beingheld as smartphone suppliers and makers hope 5G will give them aboost as they face a decline in sales this year amid U.S.-Chinatrade tensions.
Huawei of China and Qualcomm areshowcasing 5G products, while Samsung is offering aclose-up look at a new $2,000 folding smartphone, the GalaxyFold, that goes on sale in South Korea on Friday.
Deutsche Telekom is marketing the Samsung Galaxy 5G andGalaxy Note 10+ 5G for early adopters, as well as the HuaweiMate 20X 5G and for home internet the HTC 5G Hub.($1 = 0.8973 euros)(Reporting by Douglas BusvineEditing by Thomas Seythal and Jane Merriman)