Telekom plans to phase out its copper cable infrastructure. At the present time, fiber-optic roll-out is nowhere near far enough advanced to have made copper cables superfluous; in the long term, however, Telekom is aiming for precisely this goal. The competition has now publicly expressed displeasure with Telekom’s plan.
Consultation called for
The spokeswoman for the VATM industry association, Corinna Keim, commented on the Telekom plans to Golem and called for an industry-wide agreement regarding the further handling of the telecommunications infrastructure: “It is precisely this migration from copper to fiber optic networks, which is so enormously important, that must be clarified in the Gigabit Forum of the Federal Network Agency in order to give all market participants planning security.”
The Gigabitforum is a platform founded last year to promote exchange between telecommunications companies and interest groups. This platform primarily discusses common standards, and makes arrangements for reciprocal access, open access or common interfaces.
Annika Sasse, spokeswoman for the German Broadband Communications Association, also spoke to Golem in favor of closer coordination. In this context, she primarily pointed out that fair competition can only be ensured if there is “a comprehensive migration concept for the switch from copper to future-proof fiber-optic networks” that “takes into account the interests of all companies involved in the market – especially other fiber-optic expansion companies.” Consequently, it rejects a unilateral disconnection right for Telekom, as it would lead to disadvantages for the competition and thus impair competition on the telecommunications market in the long term.
Full fiber rollout envisaged
Deutsche Telekom plans to phase out copper cable in stages. According to the company, the prerequisite for this is a complete fiber-optic roll-out: copper cables are not to be switched off in a region until fiber-optic connections are available. With this assurance, the company apparently wants to counter criticism that in regions where fiber-optic expansion is not being carried out by market-dominant companies, it will hardly be possible to switch off the copper network in the foreseeable future. In fact, fiber-optic expansion is being carried out not only by Telekom, but also by numerous other companies.
However, Telekom cannot dispel another fear of its competitors: they fear that Telekom will offer its customers fiber-optic connections for a small surcharge and thus quickly gain the largest market share in FTTH technology as well.
