In countries where vectoring was not introduced – and the former monopolists did not receive further tailwind as a result – such as Spain, Portugal and France as well as in the Nordic countries, fiber optic expansion is much more advanced. “Politics in this country have strengthened the copper network,” says Walter, “Telekom’s competitors were forced to emigrate.”
Also read: Fiber optic network in Germany – welcome to fiber country
Telekom counters with the experience of the pandemic: At the time, Germany enjoyed sufficiently fast internet connections thanks to the upgraded copper network. “If we had relied directly on fiber optics in 2016, perhaps a few million more households would be connected today, especially in cities,” says a spokesman for Deutsche Telekom. The rest of the nation would then have had to endure crawling speeds of eight or 16 Mbit per second.