Investments
Our networks and our technology together form the core of our value creation. That is why we are systematically building out and interlinking our fixed and mobile networks because our strategic goal is to offer our customers the fastest possible connection at top quality, anytime, anyplace. And we remain committed to investing extensively going forward. At our 2024 Capital Markets Day, we announced plans to reinvest around 21 % of our service revenues through 2027 (Deutsche Telekom excluding T‑Mobile US and before spectrum investment). Group-wide, in 2024, we invested around EUR 16 billion (not including spectrum investment), primarily in building and operating networks, with EUR 5.8 billion of this figure spent in Germany alone. This makes us the biggest single investor among all of our German competitors. In pursuit of outstanding quality and an even quicker and more efficient network build-out, we are also striking out in new directions, for example, with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure infrastructure is built out in line with demand. Integrated management improves the capacity utilization of our infrastructure and increases efficiency in operations and maintenance.
Fiber optic-based fixed networks are the basis for integrated network experiences. The build-out of our fixed-network infrastructure with state-of-the-art optical fiber is our priority. We increased the number of broadband customers in the Europe operating segment by 3.3 % compared with the end of 2023 to 7.2 million. A total of 10.1 million households (coverage of around 38.5 %) in the footprint of our European national companies have access to our high-performance fiber-optic network. In Germany, we made fiber-optic lines (FTTH) available to more than 2.5 million further households and companies in 2024. We therefore met our own goal of making more than 10 million fiber-optic lines available by the end of 2024 (December 31, 2024: 10.1 million). There is also a clear uptick in the number of customers using this technology. More than 470 thousand new customers subscribed to a fiber-optic line from us in 2024, an increase of approximately 60 % compared with the prior year. In 2025, we want to maintain the same high build-out pace and give around 2.5 million new households access to fiber. By 2030, every household and every business in Germany is to have a fiber-optic line. Our aspiration is for Telekom Deutschland to build the majority of these. With this goal in mind, we established our own civil engineering company in 2023 (Deutsche Telekom Tiefbau) to address the pressing need for civil engineering capacities on the market. With the GlasfaserPlus and Glasfaser NordWest joint ventures, we aim to pass a total of more than 5 million households in Germany with a fiber-optic line. In addition, we have agreed partnerships with other companies that will contribute to our strategic goals (e.g., cooperations with the German real estate association Verband der Immobilienverwalter Deutschland e.V., with Glasfaser Ruhr, and with 179 cities and municipalities in the gigabit region of Stuttgart in Germany). But urban centers are not the only ones to benefit from the network build-out: we also plan to cover a total of 8 million households in rural areas with optical fiber by 2030. We also rely on cooperations in our national companies in Europe to help drive forward the fiber-optic build-out (e.g., Alpen Glasfaser in Austria). In the United States, too, we are set to add fixed broadband to our service portfolio. T‑Mobile US is leveraging its leading position in respect of mid-band mobile spectrum to offer customers fixed wireless broadband access via FWA, and also plans to give between 12 and 15 million U.S. households access to fiber by the end of 2028, primarily through partnerships and joint ventures.
The positive response shows that our efforts are paying off. We received further awards in 2024: Imtest rated us Germany’s best internet provider (09/2024 issue), and best in class in its 2024 fixed-network test with a top score of “very good.” In the Connect readers’ choice 2024 we performed well and have once again been voted Germany’s #1 fixed-network operator. We took the top spot in Chip trade magazine’s test of digital service offerings with an overall score of “very good” in the category “DSL & fixed network.” Connect trade magazine rated us the best nationwide provider in Germany (09/2024 issue) and Austria in its fixed-network test. Our Austrian network wins fastest fixed-network internet in the 2024 Ookla® Speedtest Award. In Croatia, our fixed network received the Best in Test Award from Umlaut.
In mobile communications, we set ourselves apart from our competitors with the quality of our network that has been singled out for awards in several network tests. With 5G, we are creating a highly reliable mobile network with extremely low latency and high data throughput. By the end of 2024, 98.0 % of the population of Germany was already covered by our 5G network. By the end of 2025, our 5G network is set to cover 90 % of Germany, reaching 99 % of the population. In 2024, we began offering consumers 5G standalone with network slicing and other innovative functions via dedicated rate plans. Deutsche Telekom’s business customers have already had access to this technology for some time now, e.g., for live TV broadcasts or in 5G campus networks for industry and research. As of the end of 2024, our national companies covered on average 77.2 % of the population in our European footprint with 5G. In the United States, T‑Mobile US expanded its 5G network leadership in the reporting year. Independent tests confirm the network delivers best-in-class 5G availability and industry-leading coverage.
We consistently top the independent network tests: Connect readers (2024) in Germany once again rate Deutsche Telekom best in the categories Mobile Network Operator and Network Operator Prepaid Cards. We also once again won the three big mobile network tests by the trade magazines Connect, Chip, and Computer Bild – receiving the best-possible score of “outstanding” in the Connect test. T‑Mobile US’ wireless network remains unbeaten for speed according to the Ookla® Speedtest. Our national companies in the Czech Republic, Austria, and Croatia, too, received these accolades from Ookla. Additionally, our mobile network in Croatia received the Best in Test Award from Umlaut, with this best-in-class performance further confirmed by a test conducted by the Croatian regulator HAKOM.
Our strategic goal is to be able to use the best-in-class integrated network infrastructure for our products and services. That is why we are complementing our own infrastructure with that of strategic partners, while also considering alternative access networks (e.g., satellites). In the reporting year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval to T‑Mobile US and SpaceX to supplement the existing wireless network in the United States with satellite-based coverage. This will enable almost all current smartphones to establish connections even in coverage dead zones. We are also testing ways of integrating satellites into the Greek mobile network in the future. This is with the support of an innovative application realized by our national company in Greece: the tech teams have been working together with partner Skylo to successfully integrate satellite communication into our network. In initial tests, we were able to send text messages via satellite directly to a mobile device. Satellite-based communication now also supplements classic terrestrial IoT networks (NB-IoT, LTE-M, 4G, and 5G). In the reporting year, we introduced a range of IoT rate plans for satellite connectivity, an area that Deutsche Telekom IoT is working on in collaboration with specialists Intelsat, Skylo, and Viasat.
The delivery of connectivity and services based on our own and our partners’ infrastructure is reliant on technology- and domain-agnostic orchestration capabilities. These are found in a separate technical control layer above the actual infrastructure, which allows us to manage the “network of networks.” We are modernizing our NT/IT architecture to ensure the necessary orchestration capabilities are in place. Our focus is on leveraging the full potential of network automation, cloudification, and disaggregation to make our production considerably faster, more flexible, and more cost-efficient. Disaggregation, or the separation of hardware and software, makes it possible to add new suppliers. We made significant progress in respect of the Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN) in the reporting year. One big change is that components from various different technology suppliers are now interoperable, and the first such antenna system has been transmitting in the commercial network since December 2023, providing coverage to areas of New Brandenburg. Nokia and Fujitsu supply the necessary technology components. We are planning for more than 3 thousand Open RAN-compatible cell sites by 2027 and signed an agreement with manufacturers Nokia and Fujitsu in the reporting year on the supply of components for these sites to support the Open RAN network.