5G Early Access Program

The 5G Early Access Program is a one-month program which culminates in startups testing their product in one of our 5G testbeds. Deutsche Telekom offers indoor and outdoor 5G testbeds in Berlin, Krakow and Seattle — environments where developers, startups, corporates, and hyperscalers can test 5G APIs directly on a fully functional 5G standalone core network.

We are currently updating our testbeds and this program will resume in the second half of 2023. In the meantime…

5G APIs

Our 5G APIs interact directly with our 5G Radio Access Network (RAN). They may allow users to obtain information from the network, such as location, congestion, and more, or to configure network settings.These APIs, such as 5G Latency API, 5G QoS API or 5G Throughput API, can, for example, set a quality of service for a device or IP flow.

Stay ahead of the competition

Developers, startups, corporates and hyperscalers can apply for our 5G Early Access Program to validate the impact of our 5G APIs on your own APIs and apps in our testbed. Get a head start on your competition by learning how your products can utilize 5G abilities. We support you during the complete lifecycle of the program, provide working space, as well as active mentoring and passive communication channels for your questions. There is also some space for select participants to become hubraum residents after the program finishes.

Specific areas of interest we are looking for

What you get

  • Unparalleled indoor and outdoor 5G testbeds
  • Test the first of our 5G APIs in fully-functional 5G networks
  • Configure key functions of 5G networks such as bandwidth and latency
  • Learn how your products work with 5G and leapfrog your competition
  • Huge opportunity to work with one of the world’s leading integrated telecommunications companies

Time expenditure

  • Onboarding, preparation of the use cases (this will take place remotely, with support of the program team): Three weeks
  • Testing on-site in Berlin, Krakow or Seattle (mandatory): One (final) week

Research

Developers, startups, corporates and hyperscalers can apply for our 5G Early Access Program to validate the impact of our 5G APIs on your own APIs and apps in our testbed. Get a head start on your competition by learning how your products can utilize 5G abilities. We support you during the complete lifecycle of the program, provide working space, as well as active mentoring and passive communication channels for your questions. There is also some space for select participants to become hubraum residents after the program finishes.

So far we have inducted four batches of start-ups and hyperscalers who had the opportunity to leapfrog their competition. How? By being among the earliest to get first-hand experience of 5G and 5G APIs, of course. We closely supported the program with qualified market research. One key finding: Invest in state-of-the-art documentation of your APIs if you want to win over developers!

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Highlights

FAQ

As Deutsche Telekom’s developer community, we help you build your telco apps. We take a developer-centric perspective and aim to develop our products and services based on an understanding of what developers need; and in cooperation with the developer ecosystem.

Beyond the 5G Early Access Program (see below), we run a Slack channel where our community can meet and exchange with other developers. This is the same digital space where we announce and organize our meetups, hackathons, webinars and more.

We provide infrastructure and APIs to test products and services in real-life environments. We also promote knowledge sharing with our 5G Early Access Program, hackathons, Meetups, Slack community and more.

The 5G Early Access Program is a one-month program which culminates in startups performing a demo of their product in one of our 5G testbeds. Deutsche Telekom offers indoor and outdoor 5G testbeds — environments in Berlin, Krakow and Seattle where developers, startups, corporates, and hyperscalers can test 5G APIs directly on a fully functional 5G standalone core network.

Concepts or ideas need use-case exploration, which is exactly what this program offers. In the 5G Early Access Program, we empower you to do this with user research oriented panels with external developers, designers and product owners. Our workshops are designed to result in inputs for new data sets, use cases or features, as well as to validate developer concepts and APIs. You learn how your products work with 5G and, by doing so, get an edge on your competition.

We started the EAP in May 2022 in the 5G testbed at our Berlin campus. Over the course of that year, we had 15 startups in three batches testing their solutions within that setting. A fourth batch tested their idea in both Berlin and at T-Mobile US in Seattle. In the future there will be a third testbed in Krakow. For more information click here.

We are currently updating our existing testbeds in Berlin and Seattle and building a third one in Krakow. We expect the program to resume in the second half of 2023.