Bonn, March 24, 2025 – Sven Knapp, Head of the Capital Office of the German Broadband Association (BREKO), comments on the Federal Network Agency’s decision on the extension of mobile frequencies:

“This is a slap in the face for competition, regardless of the interests of consumers and business customers. Instead of finally creating effective competition in mobile telephony, the Federal Network Agency continues to protect the mobile top dogs Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica from unwelcome competition. Instead of practically useless “guard rails” for the ineffective negotiation requirement, the authority should have introduced a service provider obligation. The Federal Network Agency missed this opportunity to ensure genuine competition. As a result, the service providers now face years of unsuccessful attempts at negotiation, while the established mobile network operators can expand their dominant position in the market largely undisturbed.

In order to prevent this, we expect the Federal Network Agency to continuously review the effectiveness of the negotiation requirement and the guard rails so that appropriate measures can be taken immediately to strengthen competition in the event of undesirable developments.”