Fast internet
Vodafone sells significantly more gigabit internet contracts
Vodafone Germany has around 16,000 employees, 5000 of whom work at the company headquarters in Düsseldorf. Photo: Federico Gambarini / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
A year ago the value was a little over 30 percent, but almost 40 percent of new Vodafone cable customers opt for maximum bandwidths.
The demand for high-speed landline Internet with gigabit download speeds is picking up somewhat.
Almost 40 percent of new cable customers with Vodafone now opt for such maximum bandwidths, as a message from the German subsidiary of the British group in Düsseldorf shows. A year ago the value was 31 percent.
Conversely, this also means that more than half of new customers are still doing without the very fast Internet, although their connections allow it – instead they opt for cheaper contracts, the downloads of which are not as fast as the heavily advertised gigabit connections.
Vodafone uses TV cables for the high-speed landline Internet that have been technically upgraded with Docsis 3.1 technology. Deutsche Telekom and companies such as Deutsche Glasfaser, on the other hand, rely on pure fiber optic connections – that is, connections with fiber optics to the apartment or at least to the basement (FTTH / FTTB).
According to an estimate by the industry association VATM, there were 31.4 million households in Germany at the end of the year in which gigabit-capable landline connections were available. Their gigabit usage share is still low, but from the point of view of industry experts, demand will increase significantly in the long term – also because of the higher data requirements in everyday life.
Vodafone also presented half-year figures on Tuesday – the company’s financial year begins in April. During the period, service revenue in mobile communications and landline networks in Germany rose by a total of 1.2 percent to 5.8 billion euros. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization after leasing costs (Ebitda AL) climbed 7.7 percent to 2.9 billion euros. As usual, no information was given on net profit. Vodafone Germany has around 16,000 employees, 5000 of whom work at the company headquarters in Düsseldorf.