Vodafone offers Gigabits via cable but will utilise new fibre network in Germany
Essen-based fibre company ruhrfibre has successfully closed €120m of senior debt financing to fully fund its large-scale fibre network in Essen that will connect 150,000 households.
DIF Capital Partners announced its investment in ruhrfibre in November 2022, alongside project developer metrofibre and the City of Essen – the latter taking a stake through its subsidiary, the Essen Supply and Transport Company (EVV). The city is one of the ten largest in the country.
The new financing package comprises senior loans totalling €120m provided by a club of senior lenders comprising ING, Kommunalkredit Austria and SEB. There is also a €40m incremental facility to expand the financing if needed. The facilities are structured as a green loan with a dedicated green use of proceed for the financing of climate friendly broadband technology.
Within the next three years, ruhrfibre will provide around 150,000 households as well as companies, hospitals and public institutions with high-speed Internet.
In June, ruhrfibre started the construction work in the first two rollout areas in Essen. The early expansion includes numerous locations for 5G masts. “With full financing, the project is now significantly picking up speed,” said metrofibre and ruhrfibre managing director Christopher Rautenberg. “New rollout areas will follow in the next few months to meet our goal of connecting 150,000 households, businesses, and public institutions to the fibre-optic network.”
Vodafone joined project in January
Vodafone announced it would work with ruhrfibre, building the connection to its active network infrastructure, manage the network operation and offer services such as telephony, fast internet and TV. The telco already gives 200,000 of the 308,000 households in Essen gigabit connections through its existing cable fibre network but it likes the idea of having non-contending bandwidth services to offer.
By the end of the rollout, the companies expect nine in ten households will be equipped with a corresponding connection.
Federal Network Agency publishes broadband availability data
Earlier this month, Germany’s Federal Network Agency published new data on fixed-network availability in its Broadband Atlas. The coverage rate for FTTH/B based fibre optic networks had reached 25% of households at the end of 2022.
Across all technologies, more than 70 percent of households can demand gigabit connections, with the majority being based on coverage with upgraded HFC networks. The Agency pointed out that more common speeds, which are often chosen even when faster connections are available, are available almost everywhere. For example, connections with 50Mbps are available for about 95% of households and with 100Mbps for a good 90% of households.
“We are continuing to develop the gigabit land register and want to continuously improve the underlying database,” said Federal Network Agency president Klaus Müller.
In total, the broadband atlas presents coverage data provided by over 330 telecommunications companies. For the first time, the Federal Network Agency has been responsible for the entire process of data collection and processing.