The German government and Deutsche Bahn have announced that the Berlin-Hamburg train route will be upgraded to improve 5G internet coverage.

Deutsche Bahn announces 5G upgrade for 2025

One of Germany’s busiest railway routes - hosting 230 trains and around 30.000 passengers per day - is poised for an upgrade. 

Starting in August 2025, Deutsche Bahn and four mobile network providers (Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica / O2, Vodafone and 1&1) will begin installing new 5G connectivity infrastructure along the train route between Berlin and Hamburg.

Deutsche Bahn has already scheduled track closures on the Berlin-Hamburg line between August 2025 and April 2026. During this period the national rail provider will construct new radio masts for railway communications. The four network providers will use these masts to house 5G connectivity infrastructure.

Germany’s notoriously poor internet connectivity is particularly slow and intermittent along the Berlin-Hamburg route, so the construction works should improve 5G connectivity in the rural areas surrounding the route too.

Deutsche Bahn must remove window coating from old ICEs

Poor 5G connectivity isn’t the only hurdle. To give passengers a 5G internet connection on the Berlin-Hamburg line, or any line, the company must remove a window coating which blocks mobile phone signal.

When Deutsche Bahn’s older ICE trains were first built, a special coating was added to the windows to prevent trains from getting too hot in the sunlight. It turned out that this heat protection coating also blocked mobile phone signals from entering the train.

As such, Deutsche Bahn has to laser remove the window protection from older trains so that passengers can use the newly available internet connection along the northern German route when regular operations restart in April 2026.

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