At the same time, he called for regulated access to their new, particularly powerful 5G networks. It was above all Dommermuth’s announcement that he would apply for so-called national roaming from the Federal Network Agency, with which the 1&1 boss got the industry on fire on Monday.
Most of the major network operators were surprised and annoyed after reading it. Neither Deutsche Telekom nor Telefónica (O2) nor Vodafone want to open up their 5G networks to that extent.
“The call for super roaming is absurd,” said a Telekom spokesman for Handelsblatt, “if only because only one network operator could be entitled to roam on a network.” 1&1 has “no network” to this day.
Telefónica, which will have to make part of its network available to Dommermuth from September, also reacted dismissively. Board member Valentina Daiber emphasized that “5G was not part of the agreement”. “Accordingly, we do not expect any competition-distorting changes to the current agreement.”
The network agency wants to examine the application
Dommermuth’s demand was also an issue at the meeting of the Federal Network Agency’s political advisory board on Monday. According to participants, the committee was informed about the 1&1 application for the first time. The network agency wants to check this first. Most councils were correspondingly cautious.
The call for super roaming is absurd. Telecom spokesman
The digital policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Maximilian Funke-Kaiser, welcomed the move by 1&1. He is therefore “happy” about the exam.
The background to Dommermuth’s demand is his plan to build a fourth mobile network in Germany. 1&1 relies directly on 5G and also on the still little tested Open RAN technology. So far, however, its own infrastructure has only consisted of 20 activated antennas. Meanwhile, Deutsche Telekom & Co. are already supplying large parts of the population.
>> Read here: 5G network construction from 1&1 becomes a debacle
In order for 1&1 customers to already have a mobile connection throughout the country during the setup, Dommermuth is dependent on renting at least one competing network at the same time. He has already concluded an agreement with Telefónica for this, but in this context he is only allowed to use the increasingly old-looking, slower 4G network from O2.
With national 5G roaming, Dommermuth would have a kind of carte blanche – which would infuriate the competitors accordingly. 1&1 would not only get access to their most modern antennas, but could also be more aggressive in terms of price. This is because roaming is usually granted at comparatively low, specially regulated wholesale prices.
Federal Network Agency has announced a fine against 1&1
His request should therefore result in considerable resistance from the big competitors. People there were happy that the German mobile communications market was lashed down from four to three major providers in 2014 with the blessing of the antitrust authorities. With the integration of E-Plus, whose network was merged into that of O2 in the years that followed, only three network operators in Germany had to bid for radio spectrum that was expensive because it was scarce.
When Dommermuth suddenly appeared in 2019 and bought 5G frequencies themselves, the dream seemed to burst. From then on, the other network operators consoled themselves with Dommermuth’s technical problems and with the prospect that 1&1 would not be competitive with 5G for a long time while the network was being set up. Should the Federal Network Agency give in to his new application, this disadvantage would be a thing of the past.
Its president Klaus Müller is also said to have announced on Monday that he would like to explain at the next advisory board meeting in June how he intends to proceed in the fine proceedings against 1&1. At the end of April, his authority had declared that it was considering a fine against Dommermuth that could cost millions because of the backlog of expansion.
The large network operators are also threatened with fines
On Monday, however, it became clear that the large network operators would probably also have to expect fines. The Advisory Board would also be informed in more detail in June, it said.
“So far we have very little information,” said the chairwoman of the digital committee in the Bundestag, Tabea Rößner (Greens), who is also a member of the network agency advisory board. In principle, she welcomed the establishment of a fourth network in Germany. This is “in the interests of consumers and ensures lower prices”. If the expansion requirements – as with 1&1 – are not met, according to Rößner, the consequences are unavoidable.
In a conversation with the Handelsblatt, Dommermuth approached Vodafone and its mobile tower subsidiary Vantage Towers in this context. He made the companies indirectly responsible for the delays in the 1&1 network construction.
It’s no secret, Dommermuth said, that “Vantage Towers failed to honor our contract last year.” He suspects that this was done on purpose. Vantage and Vodafone declined to comment.
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