CETIN, which owns and operates the largest electronic communications network in the Czech Republic, covering 99.6 percent of the population, has entered into a co-investment agreement with T-Mobile on the deployment of an FTTH network.
The joint investment project aims to cover hundreds of thousands of domestic households and companies with a state-of-the-art optical network in the coming years. The built infrastructure will be available to customers in the covered areas, either directly from T-Mobile or through CETIN's wholesale partners.
While the Czech Republic has excellent mobile coverage, according to the latest Digital Economy and Society Index published by the European Commission, only 29 percent of Czech households have access to fibre to the home or building (FTTH/FTTB).
At the same time, CETIN points out, there are locations where deployment is expensive or complicated, and in many of them individual operators cannot invest. Thus CETIN and T-Mobile have decided to roll out part of the planned fibre connections together.
The two companies say that the joint investment project will contribute to a much greater availability of optical internet for households than each party could achieve individually.
T-Mobile’s own construction efforts to expand the coverage of the optical network will be supported by cooperation with its partners, of which there are said to be almost thirty at present.
CETIN and T-Mobile will provide mutual access to the project’s infrastructure and both companies will offer their services on the infrastructure. CETIN will offer wholesale fibre internet with a speed of 1 Gb/s and a full portfolio of services by providers who use CETIN's fixed network.
The first households targeted by this project should be connected in the second half of next year. In addition to cooperation with T-Mobile, CETIN is also investing in its own individual deployment of FTTH networks. The company aims to make FTTH connections available to 1,000,000 Czech households within seven years.
