By Stuart Thomson
Altice Group’s infrastructure construction unit Geodesia has struck a partnership with German fibre builder and service provider Deutsche Glasfaser to accelerate the rollout of fibre in Germany.
The partnership calls for the laying and activation of a minimum of one million fibre optic connections in suburban and rural areas of Germany by 2025.
In total, Deutsche Glasfaser plans to build out six million fibre connections, including four million by the end of 2025.
Geodesia will become the biggest of the German company’s construction partners through the deal. The agreement sees Altice enter the German market for the first time, albeit indirectly. Geodesia has been behind the expansion of the company’s fibre network in France and Portugal. Overall, the company has connected 15 million homes to fibre globally.
“Through the partnership with Geodesia, we can further increase our planning security within the scope of our ambitious growth plans. We are thus consolidating our leading position in the increasing competition for capacities,” said CFO of Deutsche Glasfaser, Jens Müller.
“The strategic partnership between Geodesia and Deutsche Glasfaser is the start of an exciting project for the Altice Group in Germany. This partnership is evidence of a long-term relationship with the goal of building and operating state-of-the-art, high-speed fibre optic networks. With this we want to achieve nationwide fibre optic expansion in Germany together with Deutsche Glasfaser. We are proud to bring our experience and the Altice Labs product range to a new market and to share them with our long-term industrial partner and German friend,” said an Altice executive and founder Patrick Drahi’s son, David Drahi.
“Geodesia will support Deutsche Glasfaser with many years of experience in the provision of FTTH technologies and provide its customers with turnkey end-to-end solutions and an innovative range of products. Geodesia has already impressively demonstrated its own specialist knowledge and competence in setting up end-to-end chains for FTTH networks with previous successes, particularly in France and Portugal, Europe’s leading FTTH countries,” said CEO of Geodesia, Anthony Maatouk.
