July 30, 2020
// NewsVodafone Germany’s Cable Network Surpasses 21 Million Households With Access to Gigabit Speeds
This was originally published in German.
The largest gigabit network in Germany brings high-speed access to 50 percent of all German households
The target by 2022: 25 million households in the Vodafone network
Düsseldorf, Germany — July 29, 2020 — The expansion of Vodafone’s hybrid fiber cable (HFC) network in Germany is progressing even faster than planned. An additional 1.7 million homes now have access to gigabit speeds. As a result, the Düsseldorf-based technology group has crossed the 20 million Gigabit mark and now offers gigabit speeds for more than 21 million households throughout Germany. It is expected that by 2022, super-fast service will be available to a total of 25 million in the Vodafone network nationwide.
The high speeds are made possible by the modernization of the cable fiber-optic network to DOCSIS® 3.1 technology. Today, Vodafone now offers 21 million households a download speed of up to 1,000 Mbps. With this speed, the data capacity of an entire DVD (4.7 gigabytes) can be downloaded in less than 1 minute.
Working on the Next DOCSIS 4.0 Standard
DOCSIS 3.1 technology still has plenty of capacity for further expansion stages – both download and upload. But work is already underway on the next generation of technology. The successor, DOCSIS 4.0, is expected to offer speeds of up to 10 Gigabit per second for downloads and 6 Gigabit per second for uploads. As soon as the first prototypes of the new hardware generation are available, Vodafone is planning initial field tests. These are to take place within the next two years.
DOCSIS 3.1 Technology is the Primary Driver for Germany’s Leading Position in the EU
By 2022, Germany will have the highest number of households with access to Internet speeds of at least 1 Gpbs in an EU comparison. This is the result of the study “Gigabit connections in Europe: Germany’s rise to No. 1” by Goldmedia on behalf of the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communication. According to calculations, Germany will take the top position in Europe with 36.9 million gigabit households. Great Britain (25.7 million), France (24.5 million) and Spain (17.8 million) will follow in second, third and fourth place. This result is primarily due to the expansion of DOCSIS 3.1 technology. Further information on the study can be viewed here: https://www.vodafone-institut.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Gigabit-in-Europa_VFI.pdf (German language).
The cable-glass fiber is well received by customers: More and more Vodafone Germany customers want to surf at high speed: In the first quarter of this year, more than half of Vodafone’s new customers opted for a connection with 400 Mbps or faster, and every third customer chose the top speed of 1 Gbps for downloads. Plus, the hunger for data is also growing: An average of 8 gigabytes of data now rushes through a Vodafone customer’s cable/fiber optic connection every day.
Press contact
Friedrich Pohl
Head of Communications
Mobile: +49 172 71 55 900
friedrich.pohl@vodafone.com
Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications
Office Berlin
Behrenstraße 18
10117 Berlin
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