Deutsche Telekom is accelerating the build-out of FTTH in Germany with a new marketing strategy to expand the service in smaller towns.
Deutsche Telekom plans to lay the fiber-optic cables using microtrenching technology to reduce costs. Microtrenching removes the need to dig out huge trenches. Instead, narrow grooves are milled into the road/sidewalk surface.
The first project is being launched in the town of Bad Staffelstein in Franconia. Further pilot towns in Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saxony, and Thuringia are to follow early next year. Starting December until the end of February, residents there can register for a fiber-optic line. If a minimum of 750 orders for ultra-fast Internet are received during the pre-marketing phase, the fiber-optic network will be built out to the community by the end of 2018. In addition, early bird sign-ups for an FTTH service will not have to pay any installation charges.
Deutsche Telekom is also redoubling its efforts to expand fiber-optic infrastructure in areas outside of these pilot projects. It aims to lay 40,000 km of new fiber-optic cables this year – up from the 30,000 originally planned. The figure planned for the coming year is a huge 60,000 km.
Deutsche Telekom's fiber-optic network now totals 455,000 km in length. Business parks are a particular focus of the FTTH build-out, alongside subsidized expansion activities and partnerships with competitors.
Niek Jan Van Damme, Head of Business Operations in Germany, Deutsche Telekom
We deliberately chose to focus initially on building out fiber infrastructure to the cable distribution boxes and using vectoring as this allowed us to rapidly cover large areas of Germany with high-speed Internet lines. The second phase will be to bring optical fiber closer to homes.
