Tele Columbus and 1&1 agree wholesale cooperation
- 1&1 partners up with Tele Columbus Group in the marketing of broadband connections
- 1&1 will have access to all IP-enabled households in Tele Columbus‘ network, therefore Tele Columbus‘ network penetration is expected to increase
- Even broader range of services available to housing associations and tenants
- Technical implementation already underway, 1&1 products available on Tele Columbus network from April 2023
Berlin/Montabaur, 18 November 2022. Tele Columbus and 1&1 have announced a new long-term wholesale framework agreement. In this partnership the nationwide transport network of 1&1 Versatel GmbH will be connected to Tele Columbus‘ regional city networks. Thereafter 1&1 will be able to offer households high-speed internet connections featuring an internet-enabled Tele Columbus cable or fibre connection as of April 2023.
Housing tenants with Tele Columbus internet connections will soon be able to purchase 1&1 products and services. For 1&1, the new cooperation agreement opens up additional marketing potential of more than 2 million households currently, with fixed-line products offering peak bandwidths of up to 1,000 Mbit/s. Tele Columbus benefits from an even higher network penetration.
“The network opening from April 2023 is widening the choice of broadband products and offers a genuine added value for our housing association partners and all of their tenants,” explains Dr Daniel Ritz, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Management Board of Tele Columbus AG. “At the same time we are thrilled to be working with such a strong and well-known brand as 1&1.”
“Through the cooperation with Tele Columbus, we are able to further increase our coverage with fast broadband connections. In addition to Tele Columbus’ existing fibre and cable connections, we will also have access to fibre connections that will be built by Tele Columbus in the future. We look forward to working together to provide even more German households with fast and reliable internet connections,” says Ralph Dommermuth, CEO of 1&1 AG.
To create the necessary technical and organisational interfaces to allow seamless purchasing and service workflows is already well underway. From a technical perspective, the 1&1 internet signal will be fed into multiple central Tele Columbus network points and passed through to customer households.
1&1 AG is one of the leading providers of high-performance broadband services in Germany, with over four million customers. 1&1 AG as well as 1&1 Versatel GmbH both belong to the United Internet group, itself a stock listed company in Germany. United Internet (with 40%) as well as Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners (with 60%) are shareholders in Kublai GmbH. Following the public tender offer in 2021, Kublai is the majority shareholder in Tele Columbus AG with around 95%.
Tele Columbus builds, operates and markets fibre-optic, cable-based broadband networks, providing internet to around 2.3 million homes. An increasing number of internet connections are currently being upgraded to handle gigabit speeds. In addition, Tele Columbus continues to work with housing associations to expand its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure. The wholesale cooperation with 1&1 is Tele Columbus’ second partnership geared towards increasing the number of Internet providers utilising its network.
