Bringing fibre optic broadband to more homes and businesses in Germany

In western Germany sits the city of Essen.

With a population of almost 600,000, it is the centre of the Ruhr region, where over 5 million people live and where some of Germany’s biggest companies such as E.ON, RWE and Aldi are headquartered.

Working with ruhrfibre, we are bringing around 150,000 new Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections to households, hospitals and organisations in this region, meaning Essen is now home to the country’s largest commercial fibre optic operator model.

Why fibre optic?

Fibre optic cable is much more resilient, so signal remains strong even over greater distances and it also operates at a higher frequency rate. This results in greater bandwidth which means faster connection speeds.

For the fibre optic expansion in Essen, we are relying on Fibre to the Home.

With FTTH, every residential home and business unit is connected to the distribution stations with its own fibre optic line. Therefore, the bandwidth does not have to be shared with other households, so the full performance is always available.

In addition, fibre optic connections offer greater reliability compared to conventional DSL copper lines, as they are less susceptible to faults, and because transmission can be increased to several gigabits per second, this technology is also future proof.

Faster internet for an entire city

Already operating a leading next generation broadband network, currently offering up to 1Gbps connections to over 24 million homes in Germany, Vodafone also provides 200,000 of the 308,000 households in Essen with gigabit connections through its existing cable fibre network.

However, our work with ruhrfibre will build on this and means that our network will become even more stable for German customers through numerous modernisation measures and additional fibre nodes.

While ruhrfibre is responsible for planning and expansion of the fibre optic technology into people’s homes, we will build the connection to our active network infrastructure, manage the network operation and offer services such as telephone communications, fast internet and TV.

After Essen’s expansion is complete, 9 out of 10 households will be equipped with a corresponding connection. Which means Ruhr is approaching full gigabit coverage bringing new digital opportunities for the region’s people and organisations.

Supported by the Lord Mayor Thomas Kufen, it is hoped that this investment program will drive growth, economic performance and prosperity in the city.