Gigabit rollout in Germany is gaining momentum, but gaps remain, especially in rural and semi-urban areas. In addition to Telekom Deutschland (TDG) and other nationally oriented providers, a considerable number of regionally oriented players also plays an important role in the network roll-out in these areas.
Against this backdrop, in October 2022 WIK benchmarked the prices for double-play products (Internet + telephone) of more than one hundred fixed-network providers in Germany to investigate, among other things, the differences between the offerings of nationally active and more regionally focused telecommunications and broadband cable providers.
This analysis also represents an update of the December 2021 benchmark (https://www.wik.org/uploads/media/WIK_Kurzstudie_Preisdifferenzierung.pdf).
In the meantime, a number of new players has entered the market. In addition, the market is becoming increasingly dynamic. The results show both parallels and new developments:
- Depending on the marketing focus of the providers in question, there are still considerable differences in the range of marketed products and their prices (albeit at a declining level).
- As in the previous year, most of the providers marketing both xDSL and FTTB/H lines do not practice price differentiation by technology for products with the same download bandwidths. Most of the providers that practice price differentiation price FTTB/H-based products cheaper than the corresponding xDSL-based products.
- It is also striking that, compared with the previous year, a significantly larger proportion of FTTB/H providers are marketing rates with download bandwidths of 400 Mbit/s and more and, in particular, gigabit rates.
