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1&1 Successful: Mobile network now available to millions of customers!
Koblenz on November 11th, 2025: 1&1 achieves network operator status and reports mixed quarterly figures in the German mobile communications market.
1&1 Successful: Mobile network now available to millions of customers!
A lot has happened in the dynamic world of mobile phone providers since E-Plus withdrew about ten years ago. In Germany, Telekom, O2 and Vodafone remain as the big players. But now there is a remarkable new addition: 1&1 has set up its own mobile phone network and rebooked more than 12 million mobile customers. As TV Mittelrhein reports, this step came after a long phase of preparations in which the company acted as a virtual network operator, mainly via the O2 network.
Since 2019, when 1&1 bought frequencies for over one billion euros, intensive work has been done on building its own network. 1&1 relies on the innovative Open Ran technology, which enables a flexible combination of network components from different manufacturers. However, at the beginning of 2023, progress was slow, with only five active radio stations. But in the summer of the same year, the company was already able to put 1,200 stations into operation. However, a comparison with O2, which has 28,000 locations, shows that 1&1 is still a small fish in the big pond.
An important step for the future
The official launch of 1&1's new mobile phone network took place in December 2023. A crucial point for the company is the legally required transformation into a pure network operator by the end of December 2025. As Ralph Dommermuth, the company's boss, happily states, 1&1 has now achieved this status, which is of great advantage for competition and consumer freedom of choice.
However, 1&1 customers are currently still dependent on Vodafone's network because there is a lack of locations with 1&1 antennas. This happens as part of a national roaming contract. The latest quarterly figures show a mixed result: The number of mobile customers rose by 40,000 to 12.48 million, while fixed-line Internet connections fell by 90,000 to 3.86 million.
The market is changing
During the same period, the entire telecommunications market in Germany showed interesting developments. According to Statista, total sales of end customer services, intermediate services and devices fell to around 27.5 billion euros in 2024, which corresponds to a decline of around 0.5 percent compared to the previous year. At the end of 2024, there were around 201 million SIM cards, an increase of 16 million compared to the previous year.
If you look at mobile phone connections by network operator, Vodafone leads with around 82.8 million, followed by Deutsche Telekom with 68.6 million and Telefonica with 45 million. In addition, the number of 5G-capable mobile phone antennas has increased to almost 56,600, which underlines the trend towards digitalization and shows that data traffic in German mobile networks has increased to 9.6 billion gigabytes.
The mobile communications landscape in Germany is changing. 1&1 has reinvigorated competition by building its own network and shows that there is room for fresh ideas and new concepts even in a saturated market. It remains to be seen how the company will perform in the future and what further innovations await us in the mobile communications sector.