Vodafone Germany to offer HDTV service over LTE

Vodafone Germany is (according to this article on Fierce Wireless) planning to launch HDTV over its LTE network during the first half of 2012. In the wake of MNOs wailing about pressure on their network capacity from heavy users, it seems odd that an MNO would actively seek to introduce a new tranche of customers that will be ultra-high users, putting the traditional bandwidth hogs in the shade. However, in Germany there are a particular set of circumstances which go some way to justifying it. In Germany the roll-out requirements for LTE are quite strict. So if VF has to build a network they'd better find some traffic to carry on it. I wouldn't expect HDTV to feature strongly as an offer in markets with less strict LTE deployment requirements, where the technology is generally being used to cope with high demand at usage hotspots.

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