Deutsche Telekom upgraded about 18,000 antennas to support 5G over the last five weeks, thus expanding its live 5G network across more than 3,000 German cities and towns.

The operator says the upgrades mean more than 40 million people — half Germany’s population — can access 5G across all German states, which is a jump from the 16 million people with access to 5G service last month. It now says it will cover two-thirds of the population before the end of the year. Deutsche Telekom previously pledged to cover 99% of Germany’s population with 5G service by 2025.

The operator uses the 2.1 GHz and 3.6 GHz spectrum bands for its 5G service, which it says complement each other in terms of range and speed. Deutsche Telekom uses the 2.1 GHz spectrum to provide broader coverage. In rural areas, the network on this frequency band provides speeds up to 225 Mb/s, while in cities the network reaches speeds up to 800 Mb/s.

The carrier has more capacity using the 3.6 GHz band in large cities like Berlin or Cologne to achieve higher speeds and support more users. Data speeds across that band are up to 1 Gb/s. In the coming weeks, Deutsche Telekom says it will roll out high-speed 5G in more cities including Bremen and Dortmund.

Deutsche Telekom also uses dynamic spectrum sharing (DDS), which allows the carrier to dynamically allocate spectrum resources between its legacy 4G LTE and 5G network based on demand.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 5G model supports the service on the 2.1 GHz frequency, and Deutsche Telekom added support for Huawei P40 Pro 5G routers. It will also add support for OnePlus 8 phones through a software update.

Deutsche Telekom says all other 5G devices that it will introduce this year will support 5G.