Deutsche Telekom has submitted an application to the Federal Network Agency (BnA) to secure approval for the use of vectoring technology. Management board member Niek van Damme said that vectoring will enable the company to provide millions of households with fast and efficient high-performance connections on the fixed network. Telekom insists it has made concessions to rivals in the application. For example, competitors can themselves deploy vectoring at the cable distribution boxes that they have already connected using fibre optics. In addition, subscriber lines running to the cable distribution box will be retained.
Vectoring will allow households to benefit from download speeds of up to 100 Mbps and vectoring speeds of up to 40 Mbps. Telekom wants to invest some EUR 6 billion in the next four years to expand the fixed network with vectoring. For this purpose, it will be necessary to extend the fibre optics up to the cable distribution boxes and to install vectoring technology in the cabinets. This will enable 24 million households to benefit from the new technology.
Telekom owns around 330,000 cable distribution boxes, and rivals have connected to around 8,200 of these (2.3%) with their own lines. Telekom will make a bitstream connection for vectoring available as a wholesale product in areas opened up with vectoring. However, van Damme said that Telekom expected rival network operators to offer a similar offer.
