Telekom: "We have expanded one third of the fiber optics"

Deutsche Telekom believes it is on track with its network expansion. "I am delighted that we now have 10 million homes connected to fiber optics," said Srini Gopalan, Head of Germany, at the start of Deutsche Telekom's Network Day in Berlin on Wednesday. The company is referring to households that can in principle be supplied with fiber optics but are not yet directly connected ("Homes Passed"). Of these, 1.3 million are actively connected.

"By 2024, we will have expanded around a third of all fiber optics alone," emphasized Gopalan. The manager expects that the company will be able to maintain the current expansion rate of around 2.5 million households per year. "We still have to expand around 60 percent of the country."

In view of the German government's goal of having fiber optics throughout the country by 2030, that seems like a decent number. Around 4 million connections would have to be built each year to achieve this. The target is realistic, but others in the industry are warning of a slowdown in expansion.

Civil engineering problems

In this context, Gopalan emphasized that the approval procedures for the expansion are still taking too long – This also applies in particular to modern installation techniques that do not require such deep digging. "We still need five or six permits to expand a road," said Gopalan. "We are seeing a trend towards more permits for shallow depths, but it is still not enough."

The telecoms manager considers the discussions about double expansion and the end of the copper network to be a distraction from the task at hand. "Unfortunately, we are seeing these superfluous debates," says Gopalan. "We are wasting so much time with the debate about dual expansion." However, the Telekom Germany boss also took the Network Day as an opportunity to fuel these debates a little further.

With regard to the rules urgently demanded by competitors for the foreseeable migration from copper access networks to glass, the Telekom manager spoke of a "forced change of provider". However, this is not what the competitors are talking about: they want clear framework conditions for a transition from copper to glass.

1 Gbit/s at the antennas

Telekom is also making progress in the mobile network. "We have kept our promise and have now rolled out 98 percent 5G," said Deutsche Telekom's Head of Technology Abdu Mudesir. Telekom now wants to increase capacity at the antenna sites. "We are doubling our capacity and bringing 1 Gbit/s to every location."

Currently, around a third of the antenna sites have already reached this level. Within around four years, the available bandwidth is to be increased at all locations – This is also a future bet on available spectrum. "At the same time, we are also expanding the fiber optic connection of the antennas to 10 Gbit/s," explained Mudesir.

Telekom is also reporting progress along railroad lines and highways. "We have already modernized 1900 sites along the railroads and built 470 new sites," said Mudesir. However, it is not always easy to find locations and secure the power supply. "We still see major challenges in the tunnels."

Two new sites have been completed along the highways and 20 more are under construction. At the same time, Deutsche Telekom's infrastructure subsidiary Deutsche Funkturm has applied for 250 new sites along the highways.

(vbr)