Telekom Deutschland, the domestic fixed and mobile unit of German telecoms company Deutsche Telekom (DT), says that this year a quarter of its fiber-optic network expansion will be achieved through cooperation with regional partners. According to the firm, more than 20 partnership agreements have been signed with municipal utility companies and regional telecoms suppliers in locations including Muenster, Bochum, Coburg, Stuttgart and most recently last week in Weilheim, located in Upper Bavaria. Telekom says it is increasingly relying on cooperation with regional partners to achieve its nationwide fibre network expansion over the next few years. Its fibre deployment is based on three pillars: in-house expansion, subsidised rollout, and expansion through partnerships. Telekom follows an open access and non-discriminatory approach both in its own network development and in all cooperations, enabling national network partners such as Vodafone, Telefonica and 1&1, as well as regional partners such as NetCologne, to market the network under their own brand right from the start.
‘Already today, almost six million households can get a fibre-optic connection from us. This year we want to build up to three million fibre-optic connections. And we are right on schedule with our expansion. Cooperation is central and part of our identity,’ said Telekom Deutschland Board Member Srini Gopalan. At present, around 1.7 million connections have been deployed together with the firm’s partners.