The national roaming cooperation with Vodafone will include the provision of national roaming services in areas that are not yet covered by the new 1&1 mobile network

German carrier 1&1, owned by United Internet AG, said it has signed a long-term roaming deal with compatriot operator Vodafone Germany, which will enable the provision of 5G service at a national level.

Under the terms of the binding agreement, the two parties committed to finish up a final national roaming cooperation as soon as possible. The national roaming cooperation will include the “non-discriminatory provision” of national roaming services in areas that are not yet covered by the new 1&1 mobile network and will comprise the access to Vodafone’s 2G, 4G and 5G networks as well as future mobile standards and technologies.

Vodafone will start providing roaming services one year after the conclusion of the final national roaming cooperation or October 1, 2024 at the latest. The roaming cooperation with Vodafone will be valid for an initial period of five years, which can then be extended by a further 13 years.

“From the launch of 1&1’s O-RAN-based mobile network, scheduled for the end of next month, all customers on the 1&1 network with 4G mobile tariffs will initially be supplied with nationwide roaming services by Telefónica Deutschland until the national roaming supply by Vodafone is available. From then on, 5G mobile tariffs can be offered nationwide on the 1&1 network. In the transition period until the provision of 5G national roaming by Vodafone, 1&1 will provide its customers mobile 5G services within the framework of the previous MVNO-model,” the telco said.

The ongoing roaming deal between 1&1 and Telefonica is expected to expire in June 2025.

“As soon as all 1&1 customers have been activated for national roaming services by Vodafone, 1&1 will exclusively draw national roaming services from Vodafone during the contract term,” the telco added.

1&1 said it will pay a fixed price based on the percentage of Vodafone’s network its customers use.

1&1 previously said that it aims to provide 5G services to a quarter of German households by the end of 2025 and to half of them by the end of 2030.

Earlier this year, Germany’s federal network agency, Bundesnetzagentur, opened a fine proceeding against 1&1 for failures in its 5G network coverage obligations.

As part of the 2019 frequency auction, the telco had committed to deploy 1,000 5G sites by the end of last year. 1&1 said that the delays in the deployment of its 5G network infrastructure were consequence of technical problems with its partners.

According to local press reports, tower operator Vantage Towers had failed to keep delivery agreements on several occasions.

1&1 had previously selected Japanese company Rakuten Group to design, build and operate a fully virtualized mobile network based O-RAN technology. In August 2021, 1&1 and Rakuten Group announced a long-term partnership to build the former’s mobile network in Germany. Through this deal, Rakuten became the general contractor for the 1&1 mobile network.

Earlier this year, 1&1 also launched 5G services with fixed wireless access (FWA) technology.