Management & facts

Active involvement in associations is the cornerstone of our political advocacy work. Accordingly, all the various membership fees (for umbrella/trade/industry associations) account for the majority of our outlay in this area. To make our involvement transparent, an overview of the main fees paid in the past three years is provided below.

* The above figures for contributions to trade associations mean “less than 5 million euros per year” (the actual values may vary from year to year; the value given is a rounded maximum value). Deutsche Telekom does not make contributions, grant advantages or give benefits of any kind, directly or indirectly, to political parties, political movements, or trade unions or their representatives or candidates, except as required by applicable laws and regulations.

Having a high-performance, reliable and secure broadband infrastructure is the basis of success for all business sectors and is a key factor in making a business location attractive. For many years now, Deutsche Telekom has been making significant contributions in this area by investing heavily in the infrastructure for mobile internet and the fixed-line network, and especially in our fiber-to-the-home (FTTH ) networks. We show more commitment than any other company to providing full-area coverage, including in rural areas.

In order to drive network expansion, network operators in Germany need investment incentives, legal and regulatory planning security, and technological freedom of action. That enables them to respond flexibly to the circumstances of enterprises and households and meet political, economic, and social requirements. This is the only way to fully harness the potential for cost-effective private network expansion using all available technologies. When it comes to areas where cost-effective broadband expansion is not possible, it is up to the public sector to ensure the gaps are plugged by providing technology- and supplier-neutral funding programs and exercising sound judgment. Legal frameworks and regulatory practice need to actively support private-sector investment in new fiber-optic networks and prevent unnecessary financial burdens and red tape for the network operators investing in networks.

In view of the fact that the internet and telecommunications markets are converging rapidly, and in light of the growing market power of a few global internet players, the sector-specific regulation of telecommunications that has been pursued to date is creating more and more of an imbalance. The same laws and regulations that apply to telecommunications companies also need to apply to internet companies providing the same services. The objective here must be to create equal competitive conditions and enable fair distribution of the financial burden involved in broadband expansion.

As part of the EU Telecoms Package, regulations on the open internet were adopted and came into effect on April 30, 2016. The regulations particularly address permitted traffic management and transparency requirements and limit commercial product and service differentiation on the internet.

Deutsche Telekom remains committed to preserving an open internet. Content and services will continue to be available online in accordance with the best effort principle. This means that data packets are processed on the internet without preferential treatment and forwarded in the best possible way. We are continuing to expand our infrastructure so that we can cope with rapidly increasing amounts of data traffic and facilitate innovation in our network. As a result, we are satisfying our customers’ growing demands and meeting the expectations of online content and application providers, who want to be able to provide services meeting high technical-quality standards both now and in the future.

Building on the best effort internet, we are developing an innovative network architecture – 5G networks – which can better and more flexibly meet the various transmission quality requirements of specific services. We thereby fulfill business and regulatory requirements and enable innovation in the services we offer on our networks. Content is not monitored, nor do we have any influence over user or provider content. When competing with other network operators, we will also continue to market services with guaranteed quality features exclusively on a non-discriminatory basis.