Vantage Towers, TOTEM, Orange, O2 Telefónica and the Saarland University of Applied Sciences announced the first 5G motorway cross-border connectivity project on 15 January. The project is known as “5G Autobahn to Autoroute” (5G A2A), and will connect the cities of Metz in France to Saarbrücken in Germany, covering a 60-kilometer stretch. Construction will begin in early 2025 with completion scheduled for the end of 2027.
The deployment of this latest generation 5G infrastructure goes well beyond national coverage obligations and has been designed with connected and autonomous vehicles in mind.
The low latency and high reliability connectivity will enable the development of innovative mobility services, including cooperative lane changing, collision anticipation and prevention, automatic traffic jam alerts and the testing of autonomous vehicles.
Christian Hillabrant, CEO of Vantage Towers said "we are creating infrastructure that enables uninterrupted cross-border connectivity and, in the future, the use of advanced mobility applications such as autonomous driving functions - setting new standards for digital connectivity."
This highway corridor covers a 55km section in France along the A4 and A320 motorways and a 5 km section in Germany along the A6 motorway. The cross-border network hand off will be managed in France by TOTEM and Orange installing nine new masts and upgrading up to eight to ensure dedicated 5G coverage on the 3.5 GHz frequency. In Germany, Vantage Towers and O2-Telefónica will deploy up to five new towers using a distributed antenna system (DAS) on the 3.6 GHz frequency.
Commenting on the investment, Nicolas Roy, CEO of TOTEM highlighted the alternative approach taken, "this project relies on each actor's cutting-edge industrial expertise, dedicated to providing better connectivity for all along the way. With this project, TOTEM demonstrates its teams' ability to deploy bespoke and specific infrastructure solutions in a cross-border environment."
