The German market leader paid 2.2 billion euro ($2.5 billion) for 5G spectrum at a recent auction and the regulator has just unlocked access to the 3.6 Gigahertz band that will power its initial 5G offering.

Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Bonn and Darmstadt now offer local 5G services with bandwidth of up to 1 gigabit per second - fast enough to download a movie onto a smartphone in a few seconds. Hamburg and Leipzig will follow by the end of the year, with 20 German cities to be covered through 2020.

Telekom’s chief technology officer Walter Goldenits said. “We are bringing 5G to the streets and will orient ourselves toward our customers’ needs,. We will go where the demand for data is greatest.”

Rival Vodafone has also announced its 5G rollout in Germany and is challenging Deutsche Telekom on price.

Deutsche Telekom is marketing the Samsung Galaxy 5G and Galaxy Note 10+ 5G for early adopters, as well as the Huawei Mate 20X 5G and for home internet the HTC 5G Hub.