The plans are part of the German incumbent’s acceleration of its fibre-to-the-home build out in Germany, which comes amid calls in the country for faster broadband services.
The first of a new range of FTTH projects announced by the company will see the service launched in the town of Bad Staffelstein in Franconia, with residents there able to register for a fibre line between December and February. If a minimum of 750 orders for ultra-fast Internet are received during the pre-marketing phase, the fibre-optic network will be built out to the community by the end of 2018.
"We introduced pre-marketing in 2011 and came back to it as a great tool for building out fiber-optic infrastructure. Demand was mostly too low a few years ago, but we're hoping for a better response this time around," says Niek Jan van Damme, head of Deutsche Telekom's business operations in Germany.
Deutsche Telekom’s fibre network in Germany now totals 455,000km in length, at a time when demand for faster services and streaming in Europe is on the up.
In a separate announcement made on 21 November, Deutsche Telekom has also struck a deal with video content provider Netflix which sees the telco’s subsidiaries gain access to the service.
It is an expansion of an existing agreement which has already seen DT customers in Germany, Poland and the Netherlands benefit from offers that include Netflix content. Since October 2017 EntertainTV customers in Germany have had access to Netflix content in 4K on its EntertainTV Set-Top-Box, while in Poland it is available as part of T-Mobile packages.
The expansion of the deal means customers in Croatia, Greece and Romania will also be able to enjoy unlimited streaming of Netflix over mobile networks as part of zero rated offer StreamOn.
Maria Ferreras, Netflix VP business development EMEA, said: “This partnership builds on our already strong relationship with Deutsche Telekom. We are thrilled to open a new world of exclusive and critically-acclaimed entertainment for millions of Deutsche Telekom’s TV and Mobile customers in Europe.”
“We want to ensure the best content offering and TV experience for our customers and will work with Netflix to further expand our great partnership,” added Thomas Kicker, SVP of group partnering at Deutsche Telekom.
