German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom (DT) plans to spend EUR23.5 billion (USD27.2 billion) on its domestic networks over the next five years, Bloomberg cites the firm’s CEO Timotheus Hoettges as saying at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich. The Bonn-based telco has earmarked investment in German fixed and mobile networks, as well as small cells and the digitisation of infrastructure, in a bid to fend off rising competition from Vodafone Group, which acquired German cableco Kabel Deutschland in 2013, and Telefonica, which merged with KPN’s mobile unit E-Plus last year. DT is set to outline its longer-term financial plan at an investor meeting next month.
Last week it was reported by Reuters that DT considered making a takeover bid for the Netherlands-based KPN in 2014, before putting the project on hold to concentrate on the sale of EE – its UK joint venture with Orange – to BT Group. The report quoted a source familiar with the matter as saying that the German firm did not go ahead with a formal bid, while a person close to DT’s management added that the company is not likely to make an offer for KPN: ‘Deutsche Telekom will not take any action which potentially will impact its credit ratings,’ they said.