Deutsche Telekom announced a plan to invest more than €1 billion in the Stuttgart region of Germany to establish the area as a “flagship of digitisation”.

While the bulk of the investment will be in fibre across Stuttgart and five surrounding districts, the incumbent is also looking to boost LTE coverage to 98 per cent of the population and make the region “one of the first in Germany to get a 5G network”.

The operator signed a letter of intent with the Stuttgart Region today (2 July), with a final contract expected to be in place by the end of the year. The operator is allocating €1.1 billion, with the authorities providing a funding programme valued at up to €500 million to the commercial rollout.

Initial work to connect business parks and municipalities to the fibre-optic network will kick off immediately afterwards: the aim is to supply 90 per cent of company sites in business parks with fibre by 2022. By 2025, half of all households, all business parks and all eligible schools will be connected.

A major part of the project will involve “developing and implementing exemplary smart city use cases”.

Assistance
Dirk Wossner, member of the Deutsche Telekom board responsible for business in Germany, pointed to the need for cooperation to enable such deals.

“We will be relying on the support of the 179 cities and municipalities in the Region when it comes to rapid execution on site. And we will open our fibre-optic network to third parties at fair market conditions. To accomplish this, we also need a legal framework that rewards investment and provides legal certainty: regulation must not stand in the way of this innovative partnership model, the first of its kind in Germany,” he said.

Fritz Kuhn, mayor of the City of Stuttgart, said: “The state capital of Stuttgart is one of the most innovative high-tech and creative cities in Germany. That’s why it’s important for us to establish the fundamentals for the digital requirements of tomorrow, today – for developments like smart city, mobility 4.0, and 5G technology.”