Deutsche Telekom is building a 5G network for the first time at Oktoberfest using the 3.6 GHz frequency band. This is the first time Oktoberfest since a two-year break for the Coronavirus pandemic. Telekom is setting up the 15-meter “Wiesn West 1” mast to supply mobile services to around 12,000 visitors. oktoberfest 5g

Beer and bytes, traditional costumes and TikTok – these are inseparable at the Munich Oktoberfest. The largest folk festival in the world, where people will be tapping water again on September 17 after a two-year Corona break, has developed into a real multimedia spectacle. For every beer drunk (7.3 million in 2019), guests are guaranteed to send at least one selfie. And this year there will certainly be a lot of “tiktoking” at the Wiesn, the exuberant Oktoberfest clips are likely to go around the world. So it’s a good thing that Deutsche Telekom is building its super-fast 5G network on the Theresienwiese for the first time.

This is the Telekom Tower 5g oktoberfest

Actually, 5G should have started at the Oktoberfest in 2020 – but Corona had other plans. Now the time has finally come. The focus of the 5G Oktoberfest is the 15-meter-high mobile phone mast “Wiesn West 1” right next to the famous wooden barrel store of the Augustiner beer tent. At this location in the center of the Theresienwiese alone, Telekom can provide around 12,000 visitors with mobile communications. In old currency, this means: “Wiesn West 1” replaces almost two football pitches full of telephone booths. The “Telekom Tower” weighs two tons – and the substructure, which ensures a secure footing, even seven tons. For Telekom alone, 500 meters of high-frequency cable and 100 meters of fiber optic cable are attached to this mast.

Around 100 screws as thick as an arm hold the construction together, which was assembled within seven days – and dismantled again in three days after the end of the Oktoberfest.

The mobile phone mast weighs two tons – and the substructure, which ensures a secure footing, even seven tons.

This brings 5G to the OktoberfestThis brings 5G to the Oktoberfest

For the costume spectacle, Telekom is building its own mobile network this year, which would normally be able to cover a medium-sized city like Kassel. Because there is probably no other event in the world that generates so much data traffic in such a short time and on such a small area as in the 17 days this time until October 3rd at the Theresienwiese in Munich. So far, that has only been possible with  4G / LTE is working. In 2022, Telekom will be launching 5G in the particularly fast 3.6 GHz frequency band for the first time.

At the Oktoberfest (apart from the rides) it’s not about top speed and record speeds. Hardly anyone here wants to load Netflix or YouTube videos onto their cell phone at top speed. Instead, Telekom is focusing on maximum network capacities with 5G – so that each of the millions of guests can send their selfies and TikToks around the world quickly.

The Quattro antenna for the OktoberfestThe Quattro antenna for the Oktoberfest

A traffic jam in the data network is just as annoying for many Wiesn visitors as a traffic jam in the beer supply if the next beer doesn’t arrive at the table in time. To prevent this from happening, Deutsche Telekom has come up with a special trick for its parade mast “Wiesn West 1”.

Normally there are always three antennas attached to such a mast. They each cover a segment of 120 degrees – and thus ensure 360-degree all-round coverage of the entire area. As an exception, Telekom even installed four antennas at “Wiesn West 1”. This is a challenge for wireless network planners because it could lead to signal overlap.

But in this way, the capacity can be increased by another third. And that outweighs all the disadvantages.

Oktoberfest mobile communications since 2000Oktoberfest mobile communications since 2000

In 2000, Telekom started to set up its own mobile communications coverage at Oktoberfest. Back then, it was almost exclusively about making calls – and the normal mobile phone coverage around the Festwiese was sufficient for that. In 2000 it started with four locations on the Oktoberfest grounds. Today there are 14 locations: ten mast locations and four systems in the tents. If you look closely, you can spot the antennas under the properly decorated roofs. Incidentally, in-tent care has been around since 2005.

Only with this technical effort can around 60 terabytes of downloads and over 26 terabytes of uploads be managed, which flowed through Telekom’s Wiesn network in 2019. If you burned the 60,000 gigabytes of downloaded data onto 650 megabyte CDs, a tower with these 92,400 CDs (without cases!) would be a good 110 meters high – more than twice as high as the Willenborg Ferris Wheel, which is 50 meters high tallest building on the Wiesn. You could get dizzy with the ride and these numbers.

In the past there were only four cell phone locations around the Theresienwiese on the festival grounds – today there are 14 locations. In the past there were only four cell phone locations around the Theresienwiese on the festival grounds – today there are 14 locations.

The special thing about Oktoberfest mobile communications oktoberfest 5g

Normally, the ratio between download and upload in Telekom’s mobile network is around 9:1. But at the Wiesn, the world is not only upside down in the Olympic looping roller coaster but also in terms of the data volume received and sent. Because here the ratio is 2:1, so far more data is sent than is normally the case. The XXL folk festival seems to be a giant selfie catwalk, and thanks to the sophisticated technology, uploading to the web is also particularly quick.

This also works at the absolute cell phone hotspot of Oktoberfest, between the tents of Paulaner, Löwenbräu, Käfer and Kufflers Weinzelt. This is where all the central paths meet, where those unfamiliar with the area search and find themselves at the foot of Bavaria. Nowhere else at Oktoberfest does Telekom measure such a high data volume. But in general, the following applies to the entire festival area: the measure and the masts for mobile communications – they belong together like dirndl and lederhosen, like radio and Ferris wheel.

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