According to the foreign media Light Reading, Vodafone Group confirmed the details of a long-awaited optical fiber joint venture (JV), which will enable Vodafone’s German business to follow in the footsteps of local competitors Deutsche Telekom and Spain Telecom Germany.

The newly established German company, called FibreCo, is 50% owned by Vodafone and Altice headquartered in France. It plans to establish a fiber to the home (FTTH) network covering 7 million households in six years. The joint venture plans to invest about 7 billion euros (6.8 billion dollars), 70% of which will be financed through debt. Vodafone is expected to receive 1.2 billion euros ($1.17 billion) in cash from Altice.

80% of the network will be concentrated in Vodafone’s existing hybrid fiber coax (HFC) cable network for large residential buildings interested in FTTH upgrading, while the other 20% will cover households outside Vodafone’s current coverage.

The new FTTH network will complement Vodafone’s existing HFC network in Germany, which currently provides 1Gbit/s connectivity for more than 24 million households. Vodafone still intends to upgrade the HFC network as part of its broad goal of providing 10Gbit/s speed and deploy the next generation DOCSIS 4.0 technology when it becomes available.

In addition, the joint venture will provide wholesale access to all German telecom service providers, while Vodafone Germany will be the main tenant. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023.