Berlin, November 18, 2022 The German Broadband Communications Association (BREKO) is taking account of its continued membership growth: At today’s General Meeting, which was held in Berlin for the first time since 2019, the member companies elected a new BREKO Board of Directors and added four new members. Norbert Westfal was confirmed in office as BREKO President.

The BREKO Market Analysis 2022 published in September confirmed the strong momentum in the German fiber optic rollout. A quarter of all households already have access to real fiber optics and the willingness to invest and the speed of expansion are at record levels. This strong trend is also underlined by the continued growth in BREKO’s membership figures. In its 23rd year, the association currently represents 443 companies, including 236 telecommunications network operators.

The association is responding to this positive development by expanding its Board of Directors with four additional members. Thomas Eibeck, Managing Director of SachsenGigaBit GmbH, Dr. Christian Humpert, Managing Director of DB broadband GmbH, Jens Prautzsch, Managing Director of Unsere Grüne Glasfaser GmbH & Co KG and Marco Sick, Managing Director of Vattenfall Eurofiber GmbH are new to the Board. The previous members of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee around BREKO President Norbert Westfal (Spokesman of the Management Board of EWE TEL GmbH), Vice Presidents Karsten Kluge (Thüringer Netkom GmbH) and Alfred Rauscher (R- KOM Regensburger Telekommunikationsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG) and Treasurer Bernhard Palm (Netcom BW GmbH) were confirmed in office.

BREKO President Norbert Westfal, who is entering his fifth term as President, is looking forward to working with the new Board members. He welcomes the reinforcement, especially in light of the ambitious political goals for fiber optic expansion formulated in the federal government’s gigabit strategy: “I am delighted to be re-elected President and thank the member companies for their trust. I am happy to accept the mandate to drive forward the expansion of fiber optics in Germany quickly and across the board as part of our work. As part of the Executive Board team, we will advocate for a strong, self-economic expansion, targeted funding and open access – the mutual use of networks.”

New board members strengthen cooperative fiber optic expansion

The four new members elected to the Board are representative of the diversity and willingness to cooperate of the network operators organized in BREKO and all bring their own strengths to the Board’s work:

“An association like BREKO has an extremely important role to play in consistently and simply explaining the context to decision-makers, politicians and opinion leaders and representing the views of the industry,” emphasizes Jens Prautzsch, Managing Director at Unsere Grüne Glasfaser. “I am very pleased to have the opportunity to work on a voluntary basis as a BREKO board member in order to actively make my contribution together with the other board members and drive forward digitalization in Germany.”

Marco Sick is also very pleased about his election to the BREKO Board and wants to contribute the wholesale expertise of Vattenfall Eurofiber: “With Vattenfall Eurofiber, we are doing pioneering work in Berlin in terms of open access with a wholesale-only approach. I will contribute this expertise from a company that operates purely as an infrastructure provider to my work on the Executive Board in the future. I am convinced that Open Access will enable us to jointly and fairly advance the expansion of fiber optics in Germany.”

As Managing Director of SachsenGigaBit, which is still relatively new in the telecommunications market, Thomas Eibeck would like to establish strong partnerships through his work on the Board and contribute his personal industry experience: “As a Board member, I would like to contribute my many years of diverse experience from the telco environment to the BREKO Association and its members. In doing so, I see a focus on the entire environment of innovative cooperations in open access and the housing industry as well as the use of state-of-the-art technologies.”

Dr. Christian Humpert, Managing Director of DB broadband GmbH, also emphasizes the high relevance of BREKO for cooperative fibre-optic expansion, especially for newcomers to the telecommunications market: “For three years, we have been intensively pursuing our mission of ‘fibre-optic connectivity for Germany’ and are relying on partnership-based cooperation in fibre-optic expansion. With this approach, we have received great support from BREKO from the very beginning. The communication, information and event platforms have really helped us to gain a foothold in the market and make valuable contacts. We would like to thank the association for this. I am personally delighted that we can now further promote and intensify this important work from the Board of Directors.”

The new BREKO Board of Management at a glance:

President: Norbert Westfal, Spokesman of the Board of Management of EWE TEL GmbH (Oldenburg)

Vice-Presidents:

Karsten Kluge, Managing Director of Thüringer Netkom GmbH (Weimar)

Alfred Rauscher, Managing Director R-KOM Regensburger Telekommunikationsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG

Treasurer: Bernhard Palm, Managing Director of NetCom BW GmbH (Ellwangen)

Other board members:

Stephan Drescher, Managing Director of envia TEL GmbH (Markkleeberg)

Thomas Eibeck, Managing Director SachsenGigaBit GmbH (Dresden)

Jörg Figura, Managing Director of DOKOM Gesellschaft für Telekommunikation mbH (Dortmund)

Bernd Gowitzke, Managing Director KEVAG Telekom GmbH (Koblenz)

Dr. Christian Humpert, Managing Director DB broadband GmbH (Frankfurt am Main)

Jens Prautzsch, Managing Director of Unsere Grüne Glasfaser GmbH & Co KG (Ismaning)

Wolfram Rinner, Managing Director GasLINE GmbH & Co. KG (Straelen)

Dirk Sasson, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Schwedt GmbH (Schwedt)

Karsten Schmidt, Managing Director htp GmbH (Hanover)

Marco Sick, Managing Director of Vattenfall Eurofiber GmbH (Berlin)

Robin Weiand, Managing Director Westconnect GmbH (Essen)