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Germany's EWE Plans €1B FTTH Investment A regional telecoms and energy company in Germany has unveiled plans to invest more than €1 billion ($1.06 billion) in a fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network over the next ten years, with the goal of connecting as many households in its market as possible. EWE TEL GmbH said its objective is to cover the northern German state of Lower Saxony with this "digital infrastructure," noting that fast data connections were increasingly critical to ensure a positive economic development and quality of life. Stephan Weil, the prime minister of Lower Saxony, added that the project would also set an example for the rest of Germany. Although EWE did not directly refer to Deutsche Telekom's plan to make use of vectoring technology to provide 100Mbit/s broadband services over last-mile copper, it did comment that direct FTTH connections "are the future of broadband infrastructure" because they replace copper cables that have a "dampening' effect on performance. A spokesman for the company said EWE intends to enable a million households to connect to an FTTH network in future, up from the 90,000 it already covers with its existing network today. The company's market area also extends to Bremen and parts of North Rhine Westphalia and Brandenburg; a national rollout is not planned. Matthias Brückmann, the CEO of EWE, commented that the company has created a good foundation with its existing broadband expansion, but now plans to meet the growing demands of its customers in order to create a "major competitive advantage for the region." Certainly, efforts by companies such as EWE to build FTTH networks will come as welcome news to Germany's government, which announced plans earlier this year to develop "gigabit-capable" infrastructure by 2025. (See Germany's Gigabit Lag.) What has become clear is that policymakers expect private sector players to do their bit. Companies involved in the Network Alliance group, which includes several of Germany's largest service providers, invested a total of €8 billion ($8.5 billion) in broadband rollout last year, according to Germany's ministry for transport and mobility, and are set to increase funding in future.
— Anne Morris, Associate Editor, UBB2020 |
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