National roaming: 1&1 switches from O2 to Vodafone

Mobile phone providers 1&1 and Vodafone sealed their roaming partnership on Friday. Once the contract is signed, the switch to the Vodafone network becomes official. The companies announced on Friday afternoon that new 1&1 customers will be able to use Vodafone’s mobile network from next Thursday (August 29, 2024).

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1&1 has been building its own mobile network since entering the market late last year. Previously, 1&1 was a service provider selling mobile phone contracts in its own name but buying capacity from the three network operators.

New network operator

By entering the market as a network operator, 1&1 now has to use roaming contracts to ensure that its customers also have a network where 1&1 has not yet expanded. Previously, customers’ smartphones were logged into the O2 (Telefónica Deutschland) network.

Due to requirements in connection with the merger of O2 and E-Plus, O2 had to hand over some network capacity to its competitor 1&1 (then Drillisch). When 1&1 entered the market as a network operator, this transfer had to be converted into a roaming agreement, which the two companies concluded in 2021 after a bit of back and forth. This roaming contract between O2 and 1&1 runs until mid-2025.

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In August 2023, 1&1 surprisingly announced a change in roaming partner: instead of the O2 network, 1&1 customers should “roam” to Vodafone’s LTE and 5G networks in the future. With the contract closing today, the change has now been finalized.

“We are convinced that our customers will benefit from the partnership,” says Ralf Dommermuth, CEO of 1&1. “Vodafone has invested in very good network quality in recent years and is achieving strong results in terms of nationwide coverage, especially with 5G.”

Migration by 2025

For 1&1 customers, this means that from 29 August, every new 1&1 customer can automatically log into the Vodafone network if the 1&1 network is not available. Existing customers who are still roaming on the O2 network today will be gradually converted until autumn 2025.

The migration should be done gradually because, among other things, there are daily limits on migration processes between providers. Switching several million customers to a different network at once would overload all systems.

To meet the needs of around 12.4 million 1&1 mobile customers, Vodafone is upgrading its infrastructure. “Germany’s largest mobile phone migration is ahead of us,” says Vodafone’s Germany boss Marcel de Groot. “With the help of this partnership, we can make better use of our networks and strengthen them even more for our customers.”

After some delays, 1&1 became the fourth mobile operator in December 2023. The United Internet subsidiary is the first German provider to build its entire 5G network based on the open standard Open RAN. However, the company repeatedly faces obstacles that delay construction. Recently, 1&1 also caused a stir with a network failure.

“Our central goal is to expand the 1&1 mobile network as quickly as possible and make our innovative Open RAN technology available in as many areas as possible,” says Dommermuth.

(vbr)