French telco Orange and Germany's O2 Telefónica have joined a French-German consortium, which includes tower companies TOTEM and Vantage Towers, and the University of Applied Sciences Saarland (htw saar) to announce plans to create a 5G highway corridor.
The project aims to deliver gigabit-speed connectivity on the road and create the first cross-border 5G highway between the two countries.
Dubbed "5G Autobahn to Autoroute" (5G A2A), the 5G highway will link Metz, France, to Saarbrücken, Germany, spanning 60km.
Construction is set to begin early this year and is expected to be completed by the end of 2027.
The project, funded by the European Union via its Connecting Europe Facility Digital Program, includes a section in Germany along the A6 highway, plus the A4 and A320 highways in France.
According to the consortium's joint announcement, the 5G infrastructure will support a number of mobility services, including cooperative lane changing, collision anticipation and prevention, automatic traffic jam alerts, plus the testing of (partially) autonomous vehicles.
To support the build of the 5G highway network, TOTEM, Orange's tower company, will install nine new masts, and upgrade eight existing masts to ensure dedicated 5G coverage on the 3.5 GHz frequency.
In Germany, Vantage Towers and O2 Telefónica will deploy up to five radio masts using a distributed antenna system (DAS) on the 3.6 GHz frequency.
"This project is a great proof of cooperation between towercos and mobile operators to provide latest-generation 5G mobile network between Metz and Saarbrücken," said Nicolas Roy, CEO of TOTEM.
"This project relies on each actor's cutting-edge industrial expertise, dedicated to providing better connectivity for all along the way. With this project, TOTEM demonstrates its teams' ability to deploy bespoke and specific infrastructure solutions in a cross-border environment."
Last year, O2 Telefónica partnered with Autobahn GmbH to expand additional mobile phone sites along Germany's motorways with 5G technology along the 13,200-kilometer-long motorway network.