Summary sheet
The project concerns the expansion of Very High Capacity Networks in Germany. The investments in the years 2021 and 2022 will enable an additional 1.5 m homes/businesses/schools to get access to fibre broadband access networks. The project will bring customers a significant uplift of the broadband service offering up to Gigabit broadband services.
The investments will lead to additional coverage with Very High Capacity networks in carefully selected regional subsets of the Promoter's larger broadband fibre programme. The two key targets of the Promoter's strategy are to reach 25% of all German households and businesses by 2025, with the longer-term target to connect all German households by 2030 with a fibre link.
The project contributes to
the policy objectives of Digital Infrastructure by investing in Very High Capacity Networks (VHCN) located in sub-urban and semi-rural areas. It displays high financial risks due to significant
investment costs in front of uncertain revenue flows, which leads to delayed
availability of services with significant economic costs for the consumers. The
project will accelerate the deployment and generate positive network
externalities thanks to the step change in network performance, which will reinforce
digital transformation, strengthening competitiveness and innovation. The enhanced
network will allow the use of more advanced digital applications and contribute
to the resilience of Germany's digital infrastructure. The proposed EIB financing will further strengthen Deutsche Telekom's funding diversification and stability. In particular, the client benefits from favourable lending terms such as long availability period, drawdown flexibility, long tenor of the facility and a notably very sizeable loan amount from a single source. The proposed loan is expected to enable the client to crowd in complementary financing sources for its operation.
Investments in fixed telecommunications projects (mainly civil works for urban underground cable/fibre roll-out) do not fall under the Annexes of Directive 2014/52/EU amending the EIA Directive 2011/92/EU. The related works have typically limited residual environmental effects as they are mainly carried out alongside existing transport infrastructures such as roads.
The Promoter is a public company operating in the Telecom sector, which is exempt from public procurement requirements. The procedures applied will be verified in detail during the appraisal.