Telenet to spend €500 million in 1GHz network upgrade

Liberty Global-owned Belgian cable operator Telenet is to invest a total of €500 million to upgrade its legacy cable network in Flanders from the current 600MHz to 1GHz.

According to the company, the investment will support broadband speeds of at least 1Gbps, making Flanders the region with the best digital infrastructure in Europe.

According to the company, 250 new jobs are being created in Flanders during the course of the project.

In order to upgrade the network, all 150,000 amplifiers will be replaced across the fixed network throughout Flanders. The upgrade will also see the adaptation or replacement of 1.8 million other components such as splitters and taps.

“Telenet has always been a pioneer. Once again we want to make our contribution to the digital future of Flanders. We are proud that with this investment we will ensure that Flanders is a front runner in Europe in rolling out a 1GHz network of this scale,” said CEO John Porter.

“With the 1 GHz network we will be able to guarantee that all of our residential and business customers will be able to have access to the bandwidth, which they will need in the future. The upgrading of the network creates tremendous opportunities in terms of video over the Internet, machine-to-machine communication, e-health, monitoring security, cloud computing and other future innovations. It has the potential to be a huge stimulus for the digital economy in Flanders.”