- Cooperation with other network operators enables the faster, more comprehensive build-out of the fiber-optic network.
Johannes Pruchnow is to be the Representative of the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management for Broadband Cooperation in Germany. With this new role, Deutsche Telekom is highlighting the particular importance of rapid, comprehensive fiber-optic broadband build-out in Germany. The company aims to strengthen cooperation with competitors significantly.
"Building out the broadband network in Germany is one of our society's key tasks. We want to achieve even greater speed and increased coverage. The aim is to work together to provide people and companies in Germany with higher-performance lines than they have had access to up to now," says Timotheus Höttges, CEO of Deutsche Telekom.
"Broadband build-out is a complex matter involving a range of different stakeholders: regional network operators, large companies that are active on a national level, authorities; but also local build-out initiatives, and this is where Johannes Pruchnow will be active. We also want to improve cooperation above all in those areas where we ourselves have not yet built out the network, so that in the future we can also offer our customers high-performance services in these areas," says Niek Jan van Damme, who is responsible for the Germany segment on the Deutsche Telekom Board of Management.
"This newly created position means that in the future, there will be a role dedicated to coordinating the various areas within Deutsche Telekom at top management level and entering into cooperation with other market players," continues van Damme.
"We have intentionally selected someone who does not have a history with Deutsche Telekom but who nonetheless has extensive experience of the industry and its sometimes complex framework conditions. We see the appointment of Johannes Pruchnow as a signal to our competitors that we want to improve relations, which have recently been strained," explains Höttges.
Johannes Pruchnow says, "I am very pleased that the leading telecommunications provider in Germany is committed to advancing broadband build-out in Germany in the form of cooperation models. This is a win-win situation for the telecommunications industry and for Germany."
Pruchnow was CEO of 1&1 Versatel from 2012 until spring of this year. Prior to that, Johannes Pruchnow was responsible among other things for business customers at Telefónica Germany in his role as Managing Director. From 2007 to 2009, he was CEO of Telefónica Deutschland, during which time he expanded the company's wholesale business. Johannes Pruchnow also gained more than ten years of experience in the management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company. He began as Partner there in 2000 in the areas of telecommunication, media, IT and consumer electronics. Pruchnow has been actively involved in shaping regulatory conditions for the German telecommunications market since 2008 in his role as vice-chairman of BREKO (the Federal Association of Regional and Local Telecommunications Companies) and member of the board of VATM (the Association of the Providers of Telecommunications and Value-Added Services).
Deutsche Telekom currently invests some five billion euros in Germany each year, and is the largest investor in infrastructure in the telecommunications industry. The aim is first and foremost to overcome the digital divide in society and to implement a technology mix to drive forward broadband build-out in rural areas too. Broadband build-out is the foundation for the digitization of our society and our economy, as well as for the future interoperable 5G communications standard.
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