Fixed and mobile networks brought Germany through the corona crisis. But there is a long way to go in all places. The government therefore now wants to act itself. This is well received in the industry - but in moderation.
Berlin (dpa) - No more "sorry, I have no network": The Federal Government wants to close mobile phone gaps in Germany and spend more than a billion euros on it.
"I am pleased that we are now also providing massive government support," said Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) after a mobile phone summit with the federal government, the federal states, municipalities and network operators in Berlin. In order to ensure good cell phone reception, especially in rural areas, the federal government will also fund the construction of radio masts with 1.1 billion euros in the future.
Up to 5000 mobile phone locations are to be provided with at least 4G reception via a new state-owned mobile phone infrastructure company. In addition, the approval times for new masts are to be reduced from the current 18 to 3 months on average.
Although the majority of all households in Germany are now supplied with fast mobile 4G internet (LTE), there are still a number of white spots in Germany. Anyone who surfs and talks on the phone a lot knows the problem: If you come to more rural areas or sit on the train, dropouts are a part of it. There one now wants to go "radio hole hunting", as Scheuer's ministry puts it.
The Corona crisis, in which millions of people worked at home, streamed films, concerts and private meetings, is considered a passed Herculean test for the German networks. In many cases, however, the fixed-line Internet was particularly in demand.
The fact that there is still a lot of room for improvement in digital Germany was demonstrated not only in the night to Tuesday by massive disruptions in the Deutsche Telekom network, but also very clearly at the press conference after the mobile phone summit, which is always available online to journalists in the home office broke off again. It was very fitting that Federal Minister Julia Klöckner (CDU) noted that there was a lot of catching up to do with digitization and explained that, alongside future projects such as smart agriculture, it was also about "being able to watch a film smoothly from home".
Actually, the network operators are supposed to ensure nationwide cell phone reception in Germany. When bidding for mobile radio frequencies, they undertake to meet certain supply requirements so that they do not restrict network expansion to lucrative regions with many inhabitants. Nevertheless, there are still a number of dead spots. There is a particular shortage of main traffic routes, i.e. ICE routes and motorways.
To help here in particular, the federal government is now funding technical conversions in trains with 150 million euros. The program with 100 percent funding is now on its way, said Scheuer on Tuesday. The aim is that the mobile radio no longer interferes with the train radio and thus the networks along the railway lines could be better expanded. It is about 14,000 trains. Some old devices would have to be replaced, some just upgraded. This should be completed in 2021. So far, only partial funding has been provided.
Specifically, the new mobile communications infrastructure company will have to find out in the next few months in cooperation with the providers where it makes sense to promote locations. This is the case where it is not to be expected that the network operators would invest themselves in the expansion over the next few years in order to meet requirements or for economic reasons. This point is also in the interest of the industry itself. Network operators and industry associations welcomed the federal plans on Tuesday, but warned of harmful competition from a state competitor.
"State aid must be limited to those areas in which it is demonstrably not possible to foresee an economic expansion," said the digital association Bitkom. Some fear that the federal government could play too large a role in the expansion of the superfast 5G standard, in which the providers are still in the early stages or have not yet started.
In order to accelerate this, the federal government had budgeted five billion euros in its corona stimulus package. "In our view, it would be a wrong prioritization if the necessary, but extremely scarce, expansion capacities were tied up in such sparsely populated areas," said Jürgen Grützner from the VATM industry association. The success of autonomous driving and other future applications would not be decided in the last "two percent of the supply areas".
Cities and counties see it differently. They want to not only close LTE gaps in rural areas, but also to move forward quickly with the 5G network. "The network expansion that has already begun in some cities must also extend to rural areas as quickly as possible. If this is not economically viable, the federal government must also make funds available," said Reinhard Sager, President of the German Regional Council.
