Vodafone Deutschland to go all-digital from next spring

Vodafone Deutschland has said it will fully digitise its cable network from the summer of next year, freeing up space for higher-speed broadband services and more HD TV.

Vodafone has set itself a goal of freeing up spectrum currently used for analogue TV and radio in order to fulfil its ‘Gigabit offensive’ – plan to reach one third of German households with Gigabit broadband over the next few years.

The company will kick off in January with a pilot project in the Landshut and Dingolfing region.

The company said its plan would involve a reallocation of broadcasting and internet frequencies that in many cases would be implemented automatically by digital receivers and cable routers, provided they remain connected to the mains during the transition. Vodafone customers who use CI+ modules to receive TV services will need to rescan to find their channels.

Vodafone said that, following the pilot, it would announce further areas scheduled for analogue shut-down in the spring.

Vodafone currently offers speeds of up to 200Mbps across its network in Germany, with 130 cities upgraded to 500Mbps service. Over 7.2 million homes have access to 400Mbps, out of a total of 12.6 million covered by the network. The company has committed to make Gigabit speeds available across the network by 2020.