Bonn, 28.11.2022 BREKO member company Deutsche Glasfaser and Vodafone today announced a long-term cooperation for the joint use of Deutsche Glasfaser’s fiber optic network. The two companies are thus focusing on cooperation instead of superstructure in order to rapidly advance the expansion of fiber optics in Germany. Opening up existing fiber optic networks for use by competitors is now established practice.

The open access cooperation announced today by Deutsche Glasfaser and Vodafone has a term of at least ten years and will enable Deutsche Glasfaser to achieve even greater network utilization and thus higher profitability and is an important step towards rapid and nationwide fiber optic expansion, particularly in rural and suburban regions. Vodafone can market its own end-customer products to up to six million households in the entire existing and future network area of Deutsche Glasfaser.

BREKO Managing Director Dr. Stephan Albers is pleased about the cooperation between Deutsche Glasfaser and Vodafone: “We are experiencing intense competition for expansion areas in the fiber optic expansion. Competition stimulates business – on the one hand this is good for expansion progress, on the other hand in this economically tense phase it is more important than ever to expand sustainably and avoid overbuilding existing fiber optic networks. The agreement underlines the fact that Open Access is a win-win for both partners and that many companies have understood that together we can make faster progress with expansion. Open Access has long since ceased to be a theory and is now a reality in fiber optic expansion.” At the same time, the BREKO CEO warns: “We can only achieve the ambitious fiber optic targets of the German government if all telecommunications companies operating nationwide are prepared to use the networks of the expanding competitors via Open Access. The threat of overbuilding planned or existing fiber optic networks makes no sense either economically or in view of the scarce construction and planning capacities and cannot be explained to local citizens.”

The current BREKO market analysis also shows the importance of Open Access cooperations: 81 percent of BREKO network operators already offer Open Access and 23 percent of the fiber optic connections of BREKO network operators are already marketed via Open Access partners, and the trend is rising. Most recently, the companies Unsere Grüne Glasfaser and Thüringer Netkom as well as Deutsche Giganetz and LEONET announced their cooperation. In addition, there are numerous other successful Open Access cooperations in the German telecommunications market.