The Federal Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure (BMVI) rejects the network operator associations’ criticism of the planned funding of so-called “gray spots”. The ministry believes that the fear that the expansion of the funding criteria will lead to a “run” on funding and scarce resources that are already scarce is excessive. The federal government only supports where the industry is not expanding, said a spokesman. “Only there are state subsidies used at all.”

The federal government has the goal of a nationwide expansion by the year 2025 to accomplish with gigabit networks. For this, the federal government wants to promote fiber optics in “gray spots” that already have fast Internet. Funding is also to be extended to regions in which bandwidths of up to 100 Mbit / s are available (“gray spots”). From 2023 areas should also be eligible for funding in which 200 Mbit / s are already available .

Green light from Brussels The EU Commission has already given the green light for given the gray spots. “After long negotiations, our gray spots funding has been approved by the EU Commission,” said Federal Infrastructure Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) happily. The project is now in the departmental vote in the cabinet. The affected network industry has already announced a need for discussion.

The four large associations Anga, Bitkom, Breko and VATM have sharply criticized the project in a fire letter to the federal and state governments. The expansion of the funding criteria planned for 2023 to 200 Mbit / s would see the companies with ” great concern “. This means that around 14 million households and business locations would be eligible for funding “in one fell swoop”: “The result would be an uncontrolled ‘run’ by municipalities and districts on the funding “which is likely to further reduce scarce resources anyway.

Industry can fix it itself The ministry does not want that apply. In any case, the support only applies where the network operators themselves do not expand for economic reasons, emphasized a spokesman for heise online. “The industry is free to serve the entire market,” the spokesman said. “Because every serious investment intention of a telecommunications company immediately leads to a subsidy exclusion.” The ministry wants to set the pace: In view of the ambitious goal of up to 2025 “there is only a small temporal target corridor that must be addressed immediately.”

The Federal Association of Glass Fiber (Buglas) did not sign the letter to the federal government, but always criticized the bandwidth-oriented funding criteria. The Buglas considers their elimination 2023 to be correct. “Today’s black spots – that is, with broadband coverage – will be tomorrow’s white spots,” says Heer. “The more or less arbitrarily set thresholds have to be regularly adjusted. That costs money and resources unnecessarily and is usually not understood by the public.” An infrastructure goal is better: “Everything that does not have a direct fiber optic connection is therefore eligible.”

The Buglas considers the concerns about flooding the market with subsidies to be fundamentally justified. “But that can be brought under control through the specific design of the funding,” says Buglas boss Wolfgang Heer. “Criteria such as bandwidth availability, population density and the consideration of commercial expansion projects can prevent further overheating, particularly of the civil engineering market and the feared displacement.”

“Intelligent control logic” The Federal Association of Broadband Communication (Breko) would like the federal government to proceed with moderation when it comes to funding. “When transferring the requirements of the EU Commission into practice, the federal government should provide a graduated and time-staggered system in the sense of intelligent control logic,” suggests Breko boss Stephan Albers. This means that funding activities could initially be concentrated on the regions that are particularly poorly supplied and the flow of money controlled. “In this way it can be avoided that a huge number of funded projects are initiated at the same time.”

(vbr)