Germany’s ministry of economy has made plans to deploy high speed broadband networks to the rural areas in Germany. The fund to be allotted to realize this deployment is worth 10 billion euros. Utilizing this fund, the government plans to invest in technologies that provide high speed broadband services to rural areas by 2025.
It is obvious that the once-powerful industrial nations such as Germany, the UK et will lag behind if they fail to build and provide high speed communication services to their citizens. Many Asian countries and the United States are miles ahead in their broadband deployment strategies. Policymakers in Germany also share those fears and want to catch up with the latest digital developments. Future Industrial developments will be based on the availability of high speed telecommunication services. Broadband would be a catalyst for economic growth. Any country neglecting this fact will experience an economic slowdown in the near future. The competition in the industry based market by taking advantage of high speed communication services are growing in many of the Asian and North American countries.
Germany owes much of its exporting business to its small and mid-sized manufacturers. These are often family-owned business firms located outskirts of major towns and cities where progress in the deployment of broadband communication networks has been slower. The German government is targeting broadband availability to its rural areas but seems they were not convinced of the power of fiber optic networks.
The government wants to have broadband connections across the whole country by 2018. Leading newspapers reports from Berlin that the government wants to push ahead with plans for faster fiber optic networks that allow speeds of one gigabit per second. 50 Mbps speed is commonly available in Germany. Most of Germany’s broadband networks are built on legacy copper cables that limit the speed and user experience.
The plans made by the Government is a milestone in the history of broadband in Germany. The government policymakers are convinced to go ahead to build a gigabit fiber optic network by 2025 in Germany. An official paper that reflects government plans has been published this week. To achieve this goal, the government would set up the 10 billion euro fund to spur investment in such fast internet networks in rural areas.
The fund for the deployment should partly be financed from auctioning revenues of UMTS mobile phone frequencies. The government is thinking to invite the private sector also to play a bigger role to achieve its goal of gigabit broadband networks. Private sector participation is required to realize funds. The digitalization process by expanding fiber optic networks throughout the country would cost around 100 billion euros, government sources estimate.
The German government has been under criticism for inaction and failure to deploy faster internet services. The German BDI industry association criticized the government for acting too slowly. BDI is not satisfied with the expansion of digital networks. BDI believes that Germany is far from a high-performance digital infrastructure. BDI urged small-to-mid-sized companies to fully embrace the advantages of more data- and Internet-based production processes.
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