Fiber Rollout: Housing Industry Warns Against Misregulation

Housing industry criticizes fiber rules

The German housing association GdW has published a study on the government's plan to change the Telecommunications Act (TKG). The plan would let phone and internet companies wire fiber-optic cable directly inside apartment buildings. The GdW says the current version is not realistic.

Key numbers and facts

• Under the planned rules, a building owner has 2 months to say yes or no to a fiber project.
• If the owner builds the network alone, the owner has 24 months to finish it.
• GdW wants at least 6 months for the owner's answer, 3 years to build, and 6 months (not 6 weeks) to agree on the cable route.
• The GdW has about 3,000 member companies. Only about 50 to 150 of them build fiber networks in their own buildings, and even fewer run them.
• The study estimates the cost of building indoor fiber at 3.76 to 10.54 euros per month over 10 years, which is 450 to 1,265 euros in total per home.

Why this is hard

Fiber-optic cable carries internet much faster than old copper lines. Getting it into a building is not simple. Someone has to decide who pays, who owns the cable, and which path it takes through the walls. Apartment buildings are often cheaper to connect than single-family homes, because one cable line can serve many households.

Why it matters

Fiber decides how fast internet will be for tenants and owners. If the rules are too strict or too short, the GdW warns that cable may be laid twice, which wastes money. The rules also decide who has power over the building: the owner or the phone company. The GdW says that a rent increase to pay for the work is hard to justify, because rent can rise only by limited amounts.

What to watch

• Whether the government makes the deadlines longer, as the GdW asks.
• How the Telecommunications Act (TKG) changes in the final law.
• Whether there is a clear way to pay for indoor fiber, such as rent increases.