BREKO member company EWE and Deutsche Telekom today founded the joint venture “Glasfaser Nordwest” after the Federal Cartel Office officially gave the go-ahead for the joint venture on December 30 last year. Glasfaser Nordwest is based in Oldenburg and aims to supply up to 1.5 million households and companies in parts of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bremen with future-proof fiber optic connections right into their buildings. EWE and Deutsche Telekom expect to invest up to two billion euros over a period of ten years.
The new joint venture intends to start expanding the fiber optic network immediately. According to the company, the first expansion areas are in Vechta, Belm and Cloppenburg, followed by Achim, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Delmenhorst, Emsdetten, Georgsmarienhütte, Oldenburg, Stade and Tostedt.
Glasfaser Nordwest intends to make the fiber optic network available to all interested companies on “standard and non-discriminatory commercial terms”. The joint venture will not market telecommunications services directly to end customers. Instead, fiber optic access will be offered to EWE, Deutsche Telekom and other telecommunications companies on a non-competitive basis. Other companies can purchase this fiber optic infrastructure at fixed conditions (“wholebuy”), “refine” it with their own products and then offer it to their end customers as an independent product.
BREKO welcomes the establishment of the new joint venture, as the announced fiber optic expansion will provide many citizens and companies in northwest Germany with future-proof fiber optic connections directly to their buildings and homes.
For BREKO Managing Director Dr. Stephan Albers, the establishment of Glasfaser Nordwest marks the beginning of a wave of cooperation in fiber optic expansion. “The motto must be: Cooperation in fiber optic expansion instead of economically nonsensical overbuilding!” emphasizes Albers. “No company will be able to roll out fiber optics in Germany on its own. It is therefore absolutely logical for market players to work together on the expansion of fibre optics and for large players in particular to make use of the future-proof fibre optic networks based on open access models to supply their customers.”
“The founding of Glasfaser Nordwest is impressive proof that the fixed network in Germany, which has been declared dead in the past, is booming and will not be replaced by mobile communications in the future,” emphasizes the association’s managing director. “Here, two major companies have decided to focus clearly on copper-free, future-proof fiber optic connections. Because it is crystal clear: only direct fiber optic connections to buildings and homes will be able to meet the future requirements not only of commercial but also private customers and ensure Germany’s competitiveness in international comparison. It would be fatal to rely solely on mobile communications. The publication of the reports on the fulfillment of the coverage requirements from the 2015 frequency auction speaks for itself.”
In order to accelerate the nationwide rollout of fiber optic connections in Germany, BREKO, as the leading German fiber optic association, has established its own trading platform for fiber optic connections (BREKO trading platform – the “eBay for fiber optic connections”). By consistently using an open trading platform for fiber optic connections, the available subsidies can also be used more efficiently: This is because network operators who roll out fiber optic networks with the help of public subsidies are obliged to open up their networks to other demanders on fair terms.