Vodafone Germany has signed a cooperation agreement with fibre network specialist Deutsche Glasfaser to deploy fibre networks to commercial areas in the city of Düsseldorf.
Deutsche Glasfaser is the largest provider of fibre-to-the-home networks in Germany, and is engaged in a major build-out that will see its footprint expand from an estimated 235,000 households in February 2017 to 450,000 by the end of 2018. The Borken, Münsterland-headquartered company was started by Dutch private investor Reggeborgh and is now majority owned by investment firm KKR.
Deutsche Glasfaser is also keen to build fibre networks in commercial and industrial areas, having secured more than €100 million to finance their construction.
The joint project with Vodafone Germany starts with the expansion of the network into 19 business parks in the state capital, Düsseldorf. Earlier this month, Mayor Thomas Geisel signed a license agreement with Deutsche Glasfaser Business to build fibre network infrastructure in industrial areas in Düsseldorf, with roll-out starting this year and expected to finish in 2018.
Under the terms of the agreement, subsidiary Deutsche Glasfaser Business will deploy the passive infrastructure, while Vodafone will operate the active equipment and supply services to customers.
This cooperation model is intended to make business areas fit for the future. A direct fibre connection will enable symmetric gigabit speeds, or faster, for both upload and download. Deutsche Glasfaser already offers bandwidths of up to one gigabit to residential customers, while business customers can receive connection speeds up to 10Gb/s.
If successful, the collaboration could be extended to business parks across Germany. Hannes Ametsreiter, CEO of Vodafone Deutschland and Uwe Nickl, group managing director for Deutsche Glasfaser, see enormous potential for future cooperation.
“We are experiencing strong demand [from local authorities] from many regions. With Deutsche Glasfaser Business, we have specialised in the needs of business customers and are still investing heavily in network expansion,” said Uwe Nickl, group managing director for Deutsche Glasfaser.
