Fiber optic expansion: Tele Columbus buys 82 km of pipe system under Berlin

Tele Columbus, Germany’s second-largest cable network operator, has purchased an 82-kilometer underground pipe system under Berlin to expand its fiber-optic network. This will be used to build another fiber-optic ring to supply households in the near future.

Tele Columbus expands fiber ring for Berlin

As it is said in a announcement from Tele Columbus, one wants to further expand the network below Germany’s capital Berlin with the newly purchased fiber optic ring already in the near future, in order to supply new households with fast Internet.

To do so, it acquired an 82-km underground pipe system that previously housed Cito Networks’ cable ducts, company spokesman Sebastian Artymiak revealed to Golem.de.

According to Tele Columbus, the second fiber optic ring is equipped with modern speed pipes that allow several thousand fibers to be blown in. The route is similar to that of the Berlin ring line, with entry and exit points possible at more than 650 shafts. For PŸUR customers, this is intended to create a“future-proof and highly flexible backbone ring for gigabit bandwidths”.

Tele Columbus in Berlin since 2019

Tele Columbus AG offers since 2019 under the brand PŸUR over one million Berliners Internet via fiber in the gigabit bandwidth range. The expansion took place at the time with Docsis 3.1, but has not been further advanced since then. However, the company does not give any reasons for this.

It was not until December 2021 that a corresponding expansion of the fiber-optic network for PŸUR’s 2.4 million customers throughout Germany was announced – the first of these was the network expansion in Flensburg, Offenbach and Frankfurt am Main, Aschersleben and Naumburg.

Also in December, the company announced the commissioning of two new fiber-optic rings, which will connect several network locations in four German states over a distance of around 1,400 kilometers. First and foremost Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia. The purchase of the new pipe system means that more households in Berlin will now also be able to enjoy faster Internet.