• Vodafone says its OXG fibre venture has now passed one million German homes, up from 840,000 in its July network update
  • OXG is targeting more than 1.2 million homes passed by the end of Vodafone's financial year while continuing its open-access rollout

The fact

Vodafone and its German fibre joint venture OXG said on 10 September that the network has now passed one million homes. Vodafone's July network update put the figure at 840,000. The companies are aiming to pass more than 1.2 million homes by the end of Vodafone's current financial year.

OXG, a joint venture between Vodafone and Altice, is building fibre-to-the-home infrastructure on an open-access basis. Vodafone initially markets broadband, phone and television services over the network, while other service providers can also use the infrastructure on wholesale terms.

The assessment

Passing one million homes gives OXG a much larger physical footprint, but an open network also has to work for the providers selling services over it. As more addresses become available, customers need to be able to place orders, get connected, and have faults dealt with even when the company selling the broadband is not the company that owns the fibre.

Vodafone is initially handling much of the retail side, while OXG provides the underlying network and opens it to other providers. The more providers that use the infrastructure, the more important those handovers become. A large footprint is useful only where the connection can be ordered and activated without creating extra delays between the retailer and the network operator.

For BTW readers, OXG has moved from 840,000 homes passed in Vodafone's July update to more than one million in September. Reaching the 1.2 million target would extend that build further, but figures on active connections, provider availability and take-up would give a better view of how much of the growing network is being used.

What to watch

Watch whether OXG reaches more than 1.2 million homes passed by the end of Vodafone's financial year and whether it publishes figures for active connections or take-up. New retail providers and wider availability of their services on the network would also show how the open-access model is developing as the footprint grows.