Federal Network Agency publishes annual report 2021

The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has presented its annual report for 2021. The report summarizes developments in the energy, telecommunications, postal and rail sectors. For the telecommunications sector, the regulatory authority reports a new all-time high of EUR 11 billion in investments in property, plant and equipment. According to the BNetzA, total turnover in the telecommunications market amounted to EUR 58 billion, a slight increase on the previous year.

In the fixed network segment, the number of contractually booked broadband lines increased again and now stands at 36.9 million active lines, which corresponds to an increase of 800,000 newly connected lines. Of these, 2.6 million are pure fiber optic connections (FTTB/H). According to the survey, 8.9 million end customers can be directly supplied with this connection technology. The clear trend towards higher transmission rates also continued. More than 14.3 million households currently have broadband access with a bandwidth of 100 Mbit/s or more. The volume of data transmitted also continued to rise. According to preliminary calculations, the BNetzA forecasts a total volume of around 100 billion GB (previous year: 81 billion GB) of transmitted data in fixed networks for 2021. This corresponds to an average monthly data consumption of around 226 GB per user (2020: 186 GB).

Further information on market developments in the telecommunications sector and in the authority’s other areas of supervision can be found in the Federal Network Agency’s 2021 annual report.