Federal Network Agency: networks defy increased data volume
The Federal Network Agency supervises the telecommunications providers and records the volume. (Photo: Horst Galuschka / dpa)
The Federal Network Agency has published its annual report. Accordingly, the traffic in Germany continued to increase massively. The networks apparently had no problem with this.
The corona pandemic, with its effects on home office and home entertainment, has boosted the volume of data. In Germany, the number of phone calls also increased. That reports the Federal Network Agency in their report, which she presented on Wednesday. The head of the regulatory authority, Jochen Homann, was satisfied: “The past year has shown that the networks are up to the increased requirements. It’s a success. “
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76 billion gigabytes flowed through the fixed network
The number of mobile data volumes continues to rise rapidly. (Graphic: Federal Network Agency)
The volume in the fixed network rose by 16 billion gigabytes to 76 billion gigabytes compared to the previous year. This corresponds to a monthly data consumption of 176 gigabytes per user and month. That is around 24 percent more than in 2019. The rate of increase in mobile communications is even stronger: there, the annual volume rose from 2.76 to 3.97 million gigabytes. The consumption per SIM card reached a new high of around three gigabytes per month. In the previous year it was 2.14 gigabytes, around 44 percent less.
Increasing bandwidth – fiber optics on the advance
The authority shows a nominal bandwidth of at least 100 megabits per second for around ten million of the 36 million connections. In 2019 there were nine million. The difference in broadband access with a nominal one gigabit per second is even greater: the number has quintupled within a year. The availability of fiber optic connections also increased: from 5.5 million to 6.6 million households.
The agency is satisfied with the expansion of broadband connections. (Graphic: Federal Network Agency)
People are talking on the phone again
After falling numbers since 2016, the number of landline calls has almost climbed back to the level of 2018. The authority counted 106 billion minutes in 2018, currently it is 104. The amount dropped to 94 billion in 2019. The number of complaints about unsolicited telephone advertising also returned to the level of 2018. At that time it was 62,247, for 2020 the Federal Network Agency counted 63,273. In 2019 the number fell to 57,648. The amount of fines subsequently imposed, however, remained almost constant: it rose by just 43,000 euros to 1,351,500 euros. Due to around 92,000 complaints about misuse of phone numbers, the office switched off 1,745 numbers.
