Deutsche Telekom to spend €6 billion on European network expansion

Timotheus Höttges

Deutsche Telekom will spend more than €6 billion on a Europe-wide network expansion through 2018, in a bid to offer a “standardised platform” for the likes of mobile, broadband and TV services.

Outlining its plans, Deutsche Telekom said that it has now connected the first three of a planned ten countries for its new European network –  Croatia, Hungary and Slovakia.

“With our European network and the cross-border infrastructure, we will be able to set the tone and not just dance to the beat of drummers from the US and Asia,” said Deutsche Telekom CEO Timotheus Hoettges, speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

“We are the first multinational telecommunications company to be able to truly make use of the synergies that arise when the national companies work together. This is our master plan for the digitisation of Europe.”

Deutsche Telekom said it is migrating up to 100,000 customer lines across Europe to IP technology each week. In total more than 8 million lines have already been migrated to IP technology across Europe, five million of those in Germany alone.

“By the end of 2018, all Telekom networks will speak one language: IP. Accordingly, the Group will also be able to operate these networks centrally,” said the company.

Deutsche Telekom said its new “superior production model” would make use of the cloud – first by offering a cloud VPN service for business customers, with consumer-focused television services and videogame offerings to follow “over the course of the year.”

Outlining its commitment to hybrid mobile and fixed line technology, Deutsche Telekom said that starting this week its first hybrid router will be available throughout Germany, and that “as a next step, additional TV functions will be integrated into the router.”

By 2018, the firm said that half of all households connected to the Deutsche Telekom network in Europe will be able to surf the web at speeds of at least 100 Mbit per second, with fixed-line network speeds to reach up to 500 Mbit per second for around 12% of households in the coming years.

Further planned expansion of Deutsche Telekom’s LTE network will also mean that by 2018 around 95% of the population will be able to use high-speed LTE for mobile connectivity,” the firm said.