White Paper Digital Platforms | Germany

Strategies and Action Plans

The white paper focuses on digital regulatory policies aimed at fostering growth, innovation, competition, and participation in the digital economy in Germany. It outlines a strategy to transform the economy into a digital production and platform economy,

The White Paper on digital platforms picks up on a number of relevant measures set out in the Digital Strategy 2025 and elaborates on the next steps that need to be taken in order to put these into practice.

  • Providing investment incentives – modernising telecommunications law:
    We need to adapt our telecommunications law in a way that takes better account of expanding gigabit networks. This means setting the right targets and providing the right incentives for investment. The European Commission’s proposal on revising the existing European framework on electronic communication of 14 September 2016 introduces a number of useful ideas for this.
  • Safeguarding the plurality of telecoms providers and the technology mix
    Competition is the most important factor driving broadband expansion. We, therefore, need to ensure that we have a wide range of electronic communications providers available, as well as a mix of technologies that provide gigabit speeds (fibre-to-the-building connections (FTTB), fibre-to-the-home connections (FTTH), high-performance hybrid broadband cable networks, 5G as a complementary technology).
  • Optimising funding options, and building public-private-partnerships
    When it comes to funding broadband, a special focus needs to be placed on rolling out gigabit technology to rural areas. Between 2018 and 2025, around €10 billion in public funding – and a lot more in private investment – will be needed. Part of the funding will come from the new ‘fund for future investment in digitisation’ which is about to be set up. In order to stimulate demand, we need to provide small and medium-sized companies and other social and economic organisations based in rural and underserved areas that use innovative solutions with ‘gigabit’ vouchers – fixed-term grants for getting gigabit connections. Establishing public-private partnerships is an excellent way in which digital infrastructure can be expanded. And wee need to build on our existing planning and implementation capacity and extend it right across the country.