Breko accuses regulator of giving Deutsche Telekom monopoly for laying cable to buildings

The association of alternative operators, Breko, has criticised a decision by the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) about deploying cables from the basement of a building to the apartment. According to Breko, the decision by the Federal Network Agency gives Deutsche Telekom a quasi-monopoly in laying a cable to the building. The VDSL (Vectoring, Super-Vectoring) and fibre-optic connections into the building (FTTB) use the same copper cables in the last meters and interfere with each other.

The Federal Network Agency intends to provide Telekom’s copper connections with extensive protection against competition from fibre-optic connections, Breko said in a statement, despite the fact that the competitors had offered Telekom access to the fibre connections, to continue to supply its customers with higher bandwidths. The agency said in its decision that operators should be able to use the frequency range provided for VDSL, vectoring or supervectoring, and that the remaining total bandwidth for FTTB operators does not have any connection with significantly higher investment costs for fibre-optic cables.

Breko said that the Federal Network Agency’s decision gives telecommunications providers that lay fibre-optic connections into the building only two options. One option is to hide the frequency spectrum used by VDSL or VDSL vectoring or super-vectoring, or take the risk that their connections will not be used by Deutsche Telekom to cable up buildings.

―Telecompaper