Brussels, 16/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has found that the main elements of Germany's proposal for a national support scheme for the roll-out of next generation access (NGA) broadband networks are in line with EU state aid rules.
“This aid scheme will make faster broadband services available also in areas of Germany where private investment is lacking. At the same time it ensures that consumers have a choice”, said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, on Monday 15 June.
This scheme, with an envelope of €3 billion and notified in February 2014, aims to provide high speed Internet access throughout the country, including rural areas. However, as notified, the German scheme included another element, vectoring technology, which can be added to NGA networks to boost connectivity speeds even further with moderate additional investment. One of the downsides of this technology is that large numbers of households have to be bundled together and served by a single provider, which means that competitors cannot gain physical access to individual subscribers. The Commission is therefore concerned that vectoring may have anti-competitive effects. Germany has announced that a product to allow competitors full access to vectored networks will soon be available and will be submitted to the Commission for its assessment. Once authorised, vectoring technology could then also be included in state-funded projects. (Elodie Lamer)