Vodafone Deutschland updates on segmentation of HFC network

Vodafone Deutschland says it has segmented its cable network in over 6,100 locations over the last two years, including 3,500 segmentations last year, bringing higher quality internet to 6.3 million customers.

Tanja Richter (Source: Vodafone)

According to the provider, its investment in upgrading the HFC network resulted in a drop of 25% in customer contacts reporting technical issues.

Segmentation means that smaller groups of customers are served by a single fibre node.

Vodafone cited an annual landline test carried out by CHIP magazine as showing the average download speed on its network increased by over 40% last year to a new record average of 492.88Mbps, five times higher than Deutsche Telekom.

On Vodafone’s recent quarterly earnings call, where its likely loss of TV customers in Germany as a result of changes to the law concerning the bundling of access by landlords figured large, CEO Margherita Della Valle said that the company intended to focus on maintaining its HFC network in Germany rather than upgrading the whole net to fibre, with a separate fibre JV with Altice, OXG Glasfaser, targeting off-net areas.

Vodafone chief technology officer Tanja Richter said: “Over the past two years, our technicians have brought more and more fibre optics into the cable network and massively increased the number of network elements with more than 6,100 measures for customers. In places where a particularly large number of consumers use our landline network, we have divided the network segments with additional fibre optic nodes. There are now significantly fewer Internet users using our network in the same area at the same time than in the past. This means that, on average, each individual customer receives significantly more speed and reliability. This increases the quality when streaming, playing online games and working virtually from the home office.”