Telekom Deutschland, the domestic fixed and mobile operating unit of Deutsche Telekom (DT), has expanded its VDSL vectoring network to a further 200,000 households, enabling customers in the upgraded areas to access maximum download speeds of 100Mbps. The latest expansion increases the coverage of Telekom’s upgraded footprint to 63% of homes in a total of 50 cities and by the end of June 2018 the number of 100Mbps-capable households will reach seven million. The speed increases were made possible through the operator’s IP conversion and the rollout of vectoring technology, which has also enabled upload speeds of 40Mbps. From the second half of 2018, Telekom will begin deployment of super vectoring to enable bandwidths of up to 250Mbps.
In addition, Telekom has announced the expansion of its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) pilot project to Bruchsal, Markkleeberg and Hildburghausen. Late last year the firm began trialling a new marketing strategy which will see FTTH pilot projects launched in smaller towns. Starting with Bad Staffelstein in Franconia, residents are able to register for a fibre-optic line and if a minimum of 750 orders are received during the pre-marketing phase, the FTTH network will be built out to the community by the start of 2019. The service will support maximum downstream speeds of 1Gbps.