Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom Avoids 4G Miss Fine in Germany

Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom had met interim coverage targets set after all operators in the country failed to meet mandated requirements by the start of 2020, according to German network regulator.

Bundesnetzagentur said in a statement that Telefonica had avoided a looming fine of €600,000 by installing 3,040 LTE base stations before 31 July. It has to add another 2,660 by the end of the year, the majority by end-September.

Deutsche Telekom also met its first target of supplying at least 97 percent of households with 50Mb/s across all federal states, required by the end of September. It has until the end of the year to complete its other goal of supplying all major traffic routes in the country.

The transport deployment requirement must also be met by Vodafone Germany to the same timeline. It is also yet to reach the domestic target, though has until end-September to do so. After failing to hit targets set at the country’s 4G spectrum auction in 2015, the operators were granted a grace period to meet all their obligations by the end of 2020.