T-Mobile Netherlands has announced its intention to connect at least 100,000 households to its fiber to the home (FTTH) network, working alongside partner Primevest Capital Partners. The company emphasized that such deployments will be in greenfield scenarios.
“I miss the point of creating a fiber-optic network where other parties have already done so or are still doing so. I endorse the conclusions of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM), which recently concluded that these practices only lead to delays in digitizing the Netherlands,” commented T-Mobile CEO Søren Abildgaard. Thus, T-Mobile will lease capacity on other’s FTTH networks if they are already in place. The company offers gigabit broadband services at a price of 25 euros monthly to subscribers of its Unlimited mobile plan.
The company has had success with its FTTH broadband offerings. For example, T-Mobile says that, starting this past summer, it has provided fiber-optic services to more than 20,000 premises out of a total of 32,000 in the Segbroek district of The Hague. T-Mobile partnered with VolkerWessels Telecom on this FTTH deployment.
“I call on all owners of fiber-optic networks to also open up their network to (potential) competitors for an attractive fee,” added Abildgaard. “That is not the case now. Some providers charge unreasonably high rates to others for access to their network. That is bad for competition on the fixed telecommunications market. And the worst thing is that the consumer is the victim."
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