The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a German scheme to support the deployment of very high capacity broadband networks offering Gigabit speeds in Germany.
The aid will bring these networks to customers in areas where the market does not provide them, in line with the EU broadband connectivity objectives.
The scheme will have an estimated national budget of €6 billion, which will be complemented by contributions to the individual projects from regional and local budgets, for an overall estimated budget of up to €12 billion.
The new networks will be capable of offering speeds of 1 Gigabit per second (“Gbpsâ€) symmetric (upload and download), which are significantly higher compared to those that users in the target areas currently have. The German Gigabit scheme will therefore bring about a significant improvement in connectivity (a “step changeâ€).
The scheme will be available to undersupplied households, companies and public institutions.
In order to prioritise areas which are most in need, with respect to the connection of households Germany will follow a two-step approach when providing support under the scheme.
In a first step, Germany will focus on the support on the deployment of the relevant Gigabit infrastructure to serve households that have access to speeds of less than 100 Megabit per second (“Mbpsâ€). The implementation of this first step of the scheme will significantly contribute to a reduction of the digital divide between rural and urban areas in Germany.
In a second step, which will begin as of 2023, support will also be available for the deployment of Gigabit infrastructure for households that already have access to speeds of 100 Mbps, but not to a network which already provides very high speeds up to 1 Gigabit.
With the implementation of this second step, Germany aims to make Gigabit networks available for all citizens by the end of 2025.
To avoid duplication of infrastructures, the German authorities will therefore take existing and planned investments by market operators into account in the following way:
- The infrastructure will connect customers that do not have access to certain minimum speeds yet: 100 Mbps download for households; 200 Mbps symmetric (upload and download) or more than 500 Mbps download for companies and public institutions
- In a second step, as from 2023, the same threshold as for companies and public institutions will be applied for households - the new Gigabit networks connecting households in this second step can start operation at the end of 2025;
- The new networks will not be deployed where a very high capacity network is already in place or planned by private investors, such as a fibre networks leading to the customers' premises or upgraded cable networks.
- Areas where there are two or more networks providing fast broadband (30 Mbps or more) in parallel are also excluded from the scheme. ■