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Government will spend 4 billion in total on deployment of superfast Internet in areas that are not commercially viable.
The German government has pledged to allocate a further €1.3 billion of public funding to the rollout of high-speed broadband networks in difficult to reach areas.
The country’s Transport and Digital Infrastructure Ministry made the announcement on Friday, noting that the new funding will take the total invested by the state in high-speed broadband to €4 billion.
"The money will be invested specifically in underserved regions where network expansion would otherwise not be economically viable," the ministry said, in a statement.
"We are investing in the development of the gigabit society," added Alexander Dobrindt, minister for transport and digital infrastructure. "For this we need superfast Internet for all, throughout Germany."
In October last year the government allocated €2.7 billion for the rollout of networks capable of providing Internet access at speeds in excess of 50 Mbps with a view to covering the whole country by 2018.
€1.3 billion of the sum came from revenue generated by the auction of mobile spectrum, in addition to €1.4 billion from the state budget.
There are a number of funding models available. Municipalities can apply for funding to build their own infrastructure which they would then lease to operators, or use the funding to plug the profitability gap of a private operator, the ministry explained last year.
It said grants are available to cover up to 50% of the costs of a project, rising to 70% in particularly depressed areas. The maximum grant for a single project is €15 million, but it is possible to combine state funding with the support programmes of the federal states, the ministry explained.
