Deutsche Telekom (DT) and rival altnets in Germany have long been at loggerheads over claims that the former incumbent is “tactically overbuilding” fibre infrastructure in hundreds of towns and cities.

Fibre network builders such as Unsere Grüne Glasfaser, owned by Telefónica and insurer Allianz, and even Vodafone Germany have accused DT of effectively freezing altnets out of municipal markets and hampering the nationwide expansion of fibre optic networks. DT has tended to dismiss their concerns, and the operator’s CEO Timotheus Höttges has previously described his competitors’ accusations as “a myth, a complete myth”.

In an effort to get to the bottom of the matter, in July 2023 German telecom regulator, the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), and the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation and Government Modernisation (BMDS) established a unit that was responsible for monitoring duplicate fibre infrastructure projects. 

Fast forward two years, and BNetzA has decided to close the monitoring unit after apparently concluding that there is no cause for further investigation. It produced a final report based on 539 cases of duplicate fibre infrastructure that were notified up to and including 1 July 2025, and said it does not see any need at present for greater intervention in the market.

Although the monitoring unit is being closed, Klaus Müller, president of BNetzA, said the regulator “will continue to follow up specific problems of competition regarding duplicate fibre infrastructure in the future”.

However, Müller noted that “any additional examinations would need to be argued for conclusively from within the sector and would have to be adequately supported by facts”.

As you would expect, DT has warmly welcomed the latest move, declaring: “It’s now official: The allegations made by some Telekom competitors regarding the alleged ‘strategic overbuilding’ do not stand up to scrutiny.”

DT’s head of policy and regulation, Wolfgang Kopf, said the whole discussion about overbuilding had become a “sham debate” and claimed that the “massive allegations made by competitors have not stood up to factual scrutiny”. 

Moreover, DT reinforced its point that it is “normal competitive practice” to overbuild where it is evident that any slack in the system will quickly be taken up by latent demand. Noting that around 250 companies are active on the German fibre market, the operator has indicated that overlaps between networks, including those being built by DT, are somewhat inevitable.

Srini Gopalan, the former CEO of Telekom Deutschland and now chief operating officer at T-Mobile US, has previously said DT estimates overbuilding accounts for about 2% of its expansion efforts based on announcements to date. 

Altnets remain on the warpath

Meanwhile, it comes as little surprise that BNetzA’s actions have failed to appease DT’s altnet rivals.

In a joint statement, Verband der Anbieter von Telekommunikations und Mehrwertdiensten (VATM), an association of telcos and valued-added service providers, and altnet lobby group Bundesverband Breitbandkommunikation (BREKO), said that while BNetzA had presented a “detailed report”, it had failed to “draw the correct conclusions from its analysis”.

The associations continue to claim that DT’s overbuilding measures are “strategically destructive” and remain “one of the biggest obstacles to rapid, nationwide fibre optic expansion”. They also continue to press BNetzA to formally request information from DT about its network building plans.

For now, BREKO and VATM are calling on the BMDS to “urgently ensure a fair framework so that rapid digitalisation with a high-performance digital infrastructure can succeed”, claiming that “it is the competitors who are actually responsible for the majority of the fibreoptic expansion and intend to continue investing billions in Germany”. 

Germany makes progress with fibre, but more work lies ahead

A key criticism of tactical overbuilding is that it has slowed the expansion of fibre networks in Germany. Indeed, the nation’s fibre deployment progress and take-up have been sluggish when compared to European neighbours such as Spain, in part blamed on DT’s earlier focus on copper enhancement, including the use of vectoring technology.

DT as well as the wider market are now fully committed to fibre, of course. DT provides regular updates on its deployment progress and said its fibre network passed 11 million premises by the end of June, after 258,000 were added during the month. 

At the same time, DT and altnets regularly complain about obstacles they continue to face in building FTTH networks in Germany, in part owing to numerous local and regional authorities with different requirements and forms, onerous planning requirements and restrictions, and slow approval processes.

Germany’s new government is now taking steps to speed up the processes for building both fibre and mobile networks. On 26 June, it adopted a bill to amend the Telecommunications Act, with a broad aim being the improvement of framework conditions for the expansion of fixed and mobile telecoms networks.

Crucially, the government recognised that telecoms networks are of “overriding public interest”, meaning that long-standing obstacles in obtaining planning permission are set to be removed. The bill was approved by the Bundesrat (Federal Council) on 11 July.

In terms of fibre deployment to date, BNetzA said the total number of homes passed by fibre increased by 3.9 million to 21.8 million in 2024. Notably, the number of households that have activated a connection remains low, at around 5.3 million. 

According to latest figures from the FTTH Council Europe, Germany was the second fastest-growing market after the UK in terms of homes passed as of September 2024. However, in the EU27+UK ranking of take-up rates, Germany was second from bottom with 26.38%. In the EU39 penetration ranking, Germany was also second from bottom with just 11.20%. 

As observed by FTTH Council Europe, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK are the countries with the most work to be done, with 50 million homes left to be passed. The total number of households in Germany is 41 million.

– Anne Morris, Contributing Editor, TelecomTV