The German-speaking Community signs a memorandum of understanding with Proximus and Ethias to deploy fiber on its territory

In 2020 the government of the German-speaking Community initiated a project for the deployment of fiber throughout its territory. After a feasibility study and a broad consultation of the telecom operators' and the financial market a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Government, Proximus and Ethias on May 16th. The objective of these three parties is to set up a public-private partnership (PPP) to deploy fiber throughout the territory of the German-speaking Community.

A project team of WIK-Consult prepared the feasibility study in 2020 and continues its consultancy services for the government in the context of the negotiations on the founding of the PPP.

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Competitive conditions on transit and peering markets

The connection between networks of different operators takes place both via peering agreement and transit connections. Transit providers offer their customers access to or reachability for the entire Internet. In contrast, peering only grants mutual data exchange between the networks of the parties involved.

With the popularity of over-the-top audio and video streaming services, end-users in particular are creating an increasingly asymmetric data flow between the networks of their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and their interconnection partners. With the help of content distribution networks (CDNs), popular content is stored by service providers in a geographically distributed manner, thus minimizing the distance between end customers and the storage location of the content and thereby increasing the transmission quality.

Against this baseline, this study takes up, validates, and complements the forecasts and conclusions of the 2017 BEREC study on IP interconnection. Furthermore, Digital Sovereignty is analysed in this context and the trends of the next years in the industry are identified.

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Stadt.Land.Digital hosts federal conference on smart and sustainable cities

Guests can expect high-level panel discussions, presentations and networking opportunities on digitization and smart city developments in Germany. The conference will focus on local digital innovations that support climate protection. The aim of the conference is to provide practical insights in smart city projects in Germany and discussion with around 300 digitization experts from various fields. The free conference will be held in German language. Registration is open to all interested parties from local authorities, politics, businesses and associations.

The conference is hosted by Stadt.Land.Digital, an initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Economy and Climate. WIK-Consult manages the initiative’s office.

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WIK conducts workshop on "Augmented and Virtual Reality”

On May 17th, WIK hosted a virtual workshop with representatives of the supply and demand side of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) solutions, who discussed with industry and policy experts on chances, potentials and hindrances of VR- and AR-adoption in Germany.

The importance of AR and VR grows internationally and numerous start-ups have also emerged in Germany in recent years that continue to develop new AR and VR solutions. Therefore at the workshop, the focus was not only on opportunities and challenges, but also on questions about current and future business models and the general conditions in the field of AR and VR.

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IoT and SMEs

Presentation of Dr Christian Wernick at the spring convention of GFT and VAF in Muenster on April 28th 2022. (only available in German)

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Urban mobility solutions for smart cities

How do smart cities promote public transport and cycling? On Friday, 20 May 2022, Alex Dieke, head of the Stadt.Land.Digital office, led a panel discussion with municipal transport planners at the polisMOBILITY trade fair in Cologne. In the discussion, Stefan Gerstenberg, Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe GmbH, shared insights on a digital parking system that has been implemented for several park and ride facilities around Dresden. Olaf Koch, city of Hamburg, presented both a system that speeds up public buses and a solution for an autonomous shuttle. From the city of Muenster, Henning Spenthoff presented “green wave” traffic lights for bicycles.

A video recording of the discussion is only available in German.

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Registration now open: WIK 40th anniversary Conference 2022 in Brussels

In this conference, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the WIK Institute, leading policy-makers from the European institutions, academics, regulators and industry representatives from across the digital value chain (and beyond), look at market dynamics in the post-COVID area and discuss the implications of new and proposed EU legislation and guidelines covering platforms, data and essential digital infrastructure.

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