The German government is reportedly planning, indirectly, to financially support Deutsche Telekom’s recently-announced EUR30 billion investment plan.

According to Handelsblatt, the German newspaper, the government may allow the incumbent operator to waive dividend payments to state-owned investment bank KfW, and issue new shares instead.

The state owns a 15 percent direct stake in Deutsche Telekom as well as a 17 percent indirect stake through KfW.

The pair received a total dividend of almost EUR1 billion this year on their combined 32 percent investment, according to Bloomberg calculations.

Earlier this month, Deutsche Telekom said it would spend almost EUR10 billion a year over the next three years as it seeks to “improve its competitive position in the long term.”

The main focus will be in Germany, where it will concentrate on building-out its LTE infrastructure, as well as rolling out optical fibre and vectoring technology in its fixed network.

But the plan also involves the cutting of its shareholder dividend by about 30 percent – to what the operator described as a “prudent and sustainable level.”

No firm decision by the government has been made regarding the manner of its support for the project; any agreement must be careful to avoid being seen as illegal state aid.

“Whether or not a shareholder will endorse such a dividend in kind is up to the shareholder himself,” a Deutsche Telekom spokesman told Reuters.

“If or to what extent the [government] or KfW will participate in choosing one or the other alternative will be decided after the shareholders’ meeting” in May 2013 at the earliest, a  spokesman for the German Finance Ministry said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg last week.