Brussels/Bonn, 06.02.2024 The EU Commission, Parliament and Council have today reached a compromise on the Gigabit Infrastructure Act (GIA). Dr. Stephan Albers, Managing Director of the German Broadband Association (BREKO), comments on the agreement as follows

“After months of negotiations, the Gigabit Infrastructure Act has unfortunately ended up as a lukewarm compromise that will not significantly facilitate the expansion of mobile and fiber optic networks in Europe. An additional investment hurdle that had been discussed in the meantime was only just prevented. However, hardly anything has remained of the positive approaches of previous drafts.

Nevertheless, the commitment of the German Federal Government and individual members of the EU Parliament has ensured that the GIA does not receive a regulation that would further exacerbate the acute problem of the strategic duplication of fiber optic networks. The fact that companies rolling out fiber optic networks can refuse the shared use of passive infrastructures by competitors, provided they enable open access via virtual network access on fair terms, sends an important signal to the market: fiber optic networks continue to be a future-proof investment! This means that the EU target of providing all households in Europe with gigabit-capable broadband connections by 2030 remains achievable in principle.

However, this possibility of offering alternative access could be undermined: This is because the owner of the passive infrastructure must offer virtual access itself, which could nullify the regulation for many companies that have split passive infrastructure and active network operation into two separate companies. And there is an urgent need for clarification here: this restriction must obviously not apply to individual companies within a group.

The GIA perhaps gives away its greatest potential when it comes to approval procedures: It is true that an EU-wide deemed approval will be introduced, whereby applications for the expansion of fiber optic and mobile networks will in future be automatically deemed approved if the competent authority does not respond within four months. However, this deadline falls short of the current German regulation of three months and is therefore ineffective, at least in Germany.

Unfortunately, the EU is not sending any strong signals for the further expansion of fiber optics. This makes it all the more important that the right course is now set at federal, state and local level to facilitate and drive forward the expansion of the network.”