The German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung quoted the German Secretary of State, Steffen Bilger at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure.
The report said the government plans to build 5,000 masts through a public infrastructure company funded by the country’s digital infrastructure fund.
The intention is to make cover all but universal by 2024.
The announcement comes the week after the three largest mobile operators in Germany – Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica and Vodafone – agreed to jointly build out 6,000 mobile sites across the country in the interests of speed and keeping costs down.
The four operators in the UK are awaiting final regulatory and governmental approval to embark on a similar scheme.
Public company
The newspaper also reported that the government will earmark €5 million to launch a public infrastructure company in Q3 2020, which will deploy masts in ‘not-spots’, where there is no coverage.
Germany’s Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer is said to be demanding faster approval procedures for mobile sites: planning permission for 1,000 locations across the country is pending.
Germany’s fibre infrastructure is also lagging that of many of its European neighbours too.
In figures published by the Fibre to the Home (FTTH) Council Europe in March, it was ranked thirtieth out of the 34 countries that qualified for the list, in having a penetration rate above 1% of households at 2.3%.