D.Telekom to expand broadband into rural areas

BERLIN (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom AG aims to offer DSL broadband connection to almost all of Germany's households by the end of the year with a particular focus on rural and remote areas.

"Thanks to investments totaling 600 million euros ($887 million) in 2007 and 2008 ... at the end of 2008, we will be supplying 96 percent of all households with DSL," board member Timotheus Hoettges said on Thursday in Berlin ahead of the IFA consumer electronics fair.

"In concrete figures, this means that 400,000 more households will be connected to the high-speed network in 2008 and a good 140,000 of them in areas that were previously without the service," he added.

In July, the European Union's competition chief cleared 141 million euros in German public funding to boost high-speed Internet usage in rural Germany.

The German plan provides incentives for telecoms companies to roll out broadband networks to rural areas where investment would not be attractive on a commercial basis.

"The digital divide between rural and urban areas in Germany is currently one of the highest among the EU member states," European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said at the time.

Almost all Germans in cities can access broadband Internet DSL networks but little more than half of people living in the countryside could do so at the end of 2006, the Commission said in July.

(Reporting by Nicola Leske; Editing by David Holmes)