Bundesnetzagentur publishes final report on the monitoring of duplicate fibre infrastructure projects
Year of issue 2025
Date of issue 2025.07.30
The Bundesnetzagentur has today published a final report from the unit responsible for monitoring duplicate fibre infrastructure projects, which the Bundesnetzagentur and the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation established in July 2023.
The report also includes the results of the individual cases examined by the competent ruling chamber.
"We are closing the monitoring unit but will continue to follow up specific problems of competition regarding duplicate fibre infrastructure in the future. Any additional examinations would need to be argued for conclusively from within the sector and would have to be adequately supported by facts,"
said Klaus Müller, President of the Bundesnetzagentur.
Results of the final report from the monitoring unit
The monitoring continued after the interim report of April 2024. The final report is based on 539 cases of duplicate fibre infrastructure that were notified up to and including 1 July 2025. The monitoring unit created a comprehensive picture of the competitive situation from these, including any possible hindrances. The continuation of the monitoring did not lead to any further insights, in particular with respect to possible cases of “empty” planned duplicate fibre infrastructure projects. The monitoring results remained steady, even when taking the extended time perspective of a good year into account. In fact, it was extremely rare that a second undertaking did not implement its duplicate fibre deployment as announced. This was irrespective of whether the second undertaking was Deutsche Telekom or one of its competitors.
According to the notifications received, Deutsche Telekom was more likely than other network operators to start its deployment in close proximity to a commercial launch by a competitor acting first or it frequently only deployed infrastructure in lucrative core areas. These assessments, however, are based solely on information from the players participating in the monitoring survey and robust conclusions could not be drawn from this alone.
Infrastructure-based competition in those areas where only the development of a single fibre network is economic may lead to inefficient market performance. However, the Bundesnetzagentur does not see any need at present for greater intervention in the market.
Summary report of Ruling Chamber 3
The Bundesnetzagentur’s ruling chamber is the direct contact for market participants with concrete accusations of abuse of competition and examines the corresponding complaints on a case-by-case basis. These examinations follow the set of criteria relating to duplicate fibre deployment designated in the report. In future, the ruling chamber will need sufficient reason to be able to open proceedings.
Deployment activities by all companies are desirable for fibre optic expansion. However, expansion by a company with a dominant market position, such as Deutsche Telekom, can potentially hinder competition. The potential abuse of market power in the duplicate rollout of fibre networks by an undertaking with market power must always be assessed in the individual case on the basis of the overall local conditions.
Background
The Bundesnetzagentur and the Federal Ministry for Digital Transformation established a monitoring unit in 2023 to keep a systematic and continuous record of duplicate fibre infrastructure projects. The monitoring unit addressed the question of to what extent a possible abusive practice of strategic duplicate fibre projects could be used to prevent competitors from their own expansion.
The aim was to provide a broad basis for discussion with comprehensive findings about the actual situation.
The final report can be found at www.bundesnetzagentur.de/doppelausbau-monitoring (in German).