Funding fibre in the faser land
The Vodafone Group has announced that formalities have been completed on the sale of its Hungarian division for €1.7bn. In a statement the Vodafone Group announced that 4iG Nyrt and Corvinus Zrt have completed their due diligence and the parties have entered binding terms in relation to the sale of 100% of Vodafone Magyarország Zrt (Vodafone Hungary) to 4iG and Corvinus €1.7bn.
“This combination establishes a scaled converged operator across mobile and fixed communications and supports the Hungarian government’s goal of creating a national Information and Communications Technology champion” said Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone Group’s interim Chief Executive, “the combined entity will increase competition and accelerate investment in the ongoing digitalisation of Hungary.” Completion of the Transaction is expected to take place in January 2023.
Meanwhile further up Vodafone is pushing its fibre across the ‘faser’ land. Vodafone Germany is working with local fixed line broadband networker Ruhrfibre to make 150,000 new Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections within the city of Essen, which has around 600, 000 people at the heart of Germany’s Ruhr region. In this case FTTH stretches beyond domestic households to hospitals and other organisations in the region. The partnership would eventually make Essen the country’s largest commercial fibre optic operator model.
Vodafone already offers gigabit broadband in Essen using its existing cable broadband network. It currently offers up to 1Gbps connections to over 24 million homes in Germany, and gives 200,000 of the 308,000 households in Essen gigabit connections through its existing cable fibre network. The pact with Ruhrfibre will build on this and means that “our network will become even more stable for German customers through numerous modernisation measures and additional fibre nodes,” said the Vodafone website, “bandwidth does not have to be shared with other households, so the full performance is always available.”
While Ruhrfibre is responsible for planning and expansion of the fibre optic technology into people’s homes, Vodafone will build the connection to our active network infrastructure, manage the network operation and offer services such as telephone communications, fast internet and TV. Once the Essen expansion is complete, nine in ten households will be equipped with a corresponding connection. “Ruhr is approaching full gigabit coverage and it is hoped that this investment program will drive growth, economic performance and prosperity in the city,” said Vodafone.