Each apartment individually? Fight for "full expansion rights" for fiber optics

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Fiber optic installers are currently only allowed to connect homes in Germany if the owners or tenants agree. This makes things doubly inefficient. Firstly, the installers have to go out each time a new contract is signed, and secondly, networking becomes inefficient even in multi-party buildings. Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU) is considering creating a "right to full expansion", as is usual for power lines. In doing so, he has put himself between many stools.

The housing industry, together with the broadband association Anga, which traditionally represents many cable network operators such as Vodafone, is up in arms against the idea. The Association of Providers in the Digital and Telecommunications Market (VATM), of which providers such as Deutsche Glasfaser, Deutsche Giganetz or DNS:Net and other competitors of Deutsche Telekom are members in addition to Vodafone, is now expressing a fundamentally positive opinion.

According to key points from mid-July, the Digital Ministry is considering creating a right to connect all apartments in an apartment building instead of individual installations in order to "enable efficient expansion of in-building networks". "Conceivable prerequisites" should be, for example, that the company wishing to expand has already concluded at least one end customer contract. In addition, the consent of the building owner could be required if apartments are connected for which no contract yet exists. The expansion should also be completed within nine months if possible.

VATM impressed

A full expansion right for network operators under clearly defined conditions could "make an important contribution to sustainably accelerating the fiber optic supply to homes", says VATM in a position paper on the fiber optic expansion of building networks (level 4). According to the current legal situation, an end-customer contract gives the network operator the right to a so-called home tap into the respective home, but nowhere else.

Doing this free of charge at the neighbor's home so that they can upgrade to fiber optics more easily later would make it possible to "implement in-house cabling proactively and building-wide". Connecting all apartments at once would also have advantages for tenants and owners: "Multiple access points would be eliminated, noise pollution in the building would be reduced and interventions in the building fabric could be kept to a minimum."

Do not jeopardize intact cooperations

However, these potential advantages of a full expansion right and the possible "signal effect" would have to be "flanked by measures to safeguard competition" and restricted so as not to undermine "existing and functioning cooperation models", according to VATM. For example, there could first be a binding obligation to make a serious attempt to reach an agreement with the building owner. The first step would therefore be to "seek a cooperative approach". Information campaigns, administrative simplifications, a targeted reduction in bureaucracy, and more transparency for Telekom in the copper-glass migration are also necessary.

VATM Managing Director Frederic Ufer expressly welcomes the fact that Wildberger is focusing on network expansion in large apartment buildings: "Fiber optic expansion must be understood as a macroeconomic project – with the aim" of giving all tenants access to modern digital infrastructure. Currently, the fiber optic supply in houses is faltering if private owners or communities do not support the expansion. This is shown by a market analysis. Lengthy coordination processes, problems with responsibility, a lack of technical knowledge or legal uncertainties are delaying timely action.

Anga & Co: Everything OK, regulation unnecessary

The real estate associations Haus & Grund, GdW and BFW as well as Anga, on the other hand, see "no problem that requires legislative intervention". Additional regulation of in-house networks in the form of shared usage rights and extended toleration obligations for building owners "would not promote expansion, but rather inhibit or even prevent investment", they argue in a letter to Digital State Secretary Markus Richter, which is available online at heise. Communication and negotiation at eye level between the various parties would ensure appropriate solutions in individual cases.

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