Deutsche Telekom extolled the virtues of 5G over millimeter wave frequencies to support advanced industrial applications, as it commercially launched access to the band for private network customers in its home market.

Availability alongside existing 5G infrastructure offered within campus networks follows a trial of industrial machines and drone applications using the 26GHz band alongside the operator’s customer system integrator Ger4tech Mechatronik.

The pilot took place at research facility Werner-von-Siemens Centre for Industry and Science in Berlin and also used kit from IoT solutions provider Telit Cinterion.

Deutsche Telekom highlighted the use of millimetre wave frequencies had “huge potential” for data intensive enterprise applications, with an expectation it would provide benefits for deployment of automated vehicles and other industrial machinery.

It expects the band to support low latency times of 3-4 milliseconds round trip time and data rates of over 4Gb/s download and 2Gb/s upload. The latter figure is deemed a key benefit for use of the spectrum in industrial private networks in Germany, which generally use 5G over mid-band frequencies.

Telekom Deutschland MD business customers Klaus Werner said it was: “important for our industrial customers in the age of artificial intelligence to be able to upload data from machines and thus make it available and analysable in real time,” stating it was the “only way for companies to introduce AI applications sensibly and efficiently”.