Meridiam, Vodafone Deutschland partner for FTTH to 40,000 inhabitants in Germany

News and Business

Meridiam and Vodafone Deutschland say they intend to build a comprehensive fibre optic network for the community of Montabaur with its 24 local municipalities, located 100 km north west of Frankfurt. Through this fibre network, all individuals, businesses and public bodies will get access to a fibre connection. The companies say that such an approach is unique in Germany and became possible through the innovative cooperation between partners, which also offers great potential to be transferred to other regions in Germany.

While Meridiam is responsible for the financing, construction and maintenance of the network, Vodafone will operate the network and offer both private and business customers the wide Vodafone product portfolio. For Meridiam, such a comprehensive and sustainable fibre network creates the basis for many subsequent infrastructure developments and further smart city solutions such as 5G rollout, automated driving, etc, and opens up further opportunities to be jointly developed with public authorities. For Vodafone, extensive fibre-optic installation in every home on this scale has so far been unique. It gives the company the opportunity to complement its existing cable network with high-quality fibre products and to further develop it cooperatively, offering customers in the community high-performance products at gigabit level. Vodafone will also open the network to other telecommunications companies, thereby giving them the opportunity to market their products locally.

The demand for broadband speed and volume is growing exponentially in Europe and will only be supplied in the long term with technology based on fibre networks, say the companies. At the same time, the penetration of households and businesses in many European countries (i.e. Germany, UK, Austria) with FTTH connections is below 10% which leads to significant investment needs in these countries (> 100 bn EUR). Meridiam therefore foresees a lot of opportunities in the future for the development of such projects.

For more information, visit www.vodafone.de