Good morning or good afternoon, all, and welcome to the Tele Columbus Capital Markets Day live webinar. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator for today. If you'd like to ask a question during the Q&A portion of today's call, please use the raise hand icon towards the bottom of your screen if you've joined us via Zoom. Alternatively, if you've joined us via the phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to Sebastian Artymiak to begin, so please go ahead when you are ready.
Yeah. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our Capital Markets Day. We are delighted to have you joining us today for the next three hours. For your convenience, the slides are still available in this moment for download in the password-protected investor relations section of the company's website. This event, including Q&A session, will be recorded and will be available in the login section of our website after the event. Our presenters are CEO Markus Oswald; CSO Christian Biechteler; CTO Michael Fränkle; CCO Jochen Busch; and Interim CFO Nicolai Oswald. Christoph Oppenauer from Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and supervisory board member is attending as well and will be available for the Q&A session.
After our successful A&E transaction, this event is an excellent opportunity for us to share some insights to the broader financial markets community, and it's also a chance for you to hear directly from the entire executive board. After the introduction for Tele Columbus, we will cover following topics: competitive advantages, current trading, focused strategic plan, and the introduction of NetCo/ServCo. This will be followed by a Q&A session. And now, it's my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Markus Oswald. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Sebastian, and good evening to all of you, to our first Capital Markets Day. Yeah, I will lead you through the first session and yeah give an introduction of where we stand today. What is Tele Columbus? I would say that a couple of people on the line are following the company several years, but I think we also have new participants, so I thought it is helpful to start a little bit right from the beginning and then come also definitely to the future of the company. So Tele Columbus, what are we? What we are doing in Germany, and so on. So Tele Columbus comes from a cable operator side since decades and is now transforming into an ISP company in Germany.
We are most likely present in the eastern part of Germany, but we are also strong in Munich as well, Nuremberg, in Bavaria, Hamburg, and in some areas in Hesse. So, we have a really attractive footprint, which is presented on the right side. I come later on to the footprint, and really uniquely positioned in the German market. And what we did in the past is really a slide which come later on, which is my last one, slide. Because, here you are, we can present you that we are right now the fastest growing IP operator in Germany.
So when you are looking on the footprint, and this is mainly where we are focusing on our story later on, we have right now or near to finish during the course of the year 2.3 million footprint of gigabit-ready homes connected, where ein Gig, one Gig is possible to on the IP side to be purchased by our customers. We have a footprint of near 700,000, 700,000 homes, TV access only. And compared to the normal speech in the market, what is homes passed, we are near to 5 million homes passed in Germany. So, a customer base, an RGU base, where really cross-sell and upsell opportunities are there. We are using them right now. We will use them in the future.
This all together with our strong majority shareholders, which is on the one hand side from the infra side, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, and from the German telco side, United Internet. A brief summary what happened last year. So last year, or on the left-hand side, you can see our gross profit split. So we are transforming into an IT company, but very important, we are already... Most of our gross profit is linked to internet and telephony, which is really important. TV is also a position which will develop over the years, and internet will step in and compensate some of the losses we are expecting to see on the TV side. I come later on to that.
When we are looking at our total revenue, 2023, we delivered more than four hundred fifty million on revenue, more than one hundred and ninety million on EBITDA. And something of all and based on a customer base of 3.5 and more million RGUs, and this is a cross-sell and upsell opportunity. For us, it was a special year. I joined last year, February, the company, and for us it was a special year, the whole management team, because we managed to bring the company into EBITDA growth. And this was the first time since 6 years. Very important for us. Housing association, this is unique and special in Germany, and unique and special for Tele Columbus.
The number 7, 750 is an important number for us, because this stands for 750 professional housing associations, which is linked to 70% of our total footprint. What is special on that message? So with a perfect, since decades, lasting customer relationship, we are managing with 750 customers on the housing association side, millions of tenants in their building in Germany, and 70% of our footprint. Why it is important also this role with housing associations and the role in Germany, because what we are also showing you today is how Tele Columbus will transform from a cable operator into an IP operator, into a fiber company, is also the down graph here.
The graph shows the position of Germany, and this is not linked to the forecast for the European football championship. It is linked for the role of Germany in the fiber market in Europe and the position I didn't count it. The good thing is that Germany needs and is willing to improve, and that Tele Columbus has a special role in this improvement because we are on the same track like Germany. Fiber is getting pace in Germany. Where it's getting pace, I will show you. The good thing is that it is exactly in the footprint where we are playing. It is losing pace in other footprints. I will show it later on to you. Later on is now. So just let's step back a little bit and what is Germany?
So Germany and households in Germany: 42 million households in Germany. On the left-hand side, the copper twisted pair is nearly in every of these households all over Germany. In small cities, in little villages, in urban cities, in so-called A cities like Berlin. And here we have the national player, Deutsche Telekom, who is fighting against that they are losing on copper. When we are now looking, what is 42 million households, how they are divided and where we find a lot of brownfields in that FTTH story in Germany, you can really cut Germany by half on housing association, on households, and 21 million, the numbers are really near to that, is greenfield. Greenfield means we are in rural areas, we are in suburban cities or towns, a little bit urban cities, smaller ones.
And here, we have that so-called greenfield approach in Germany and, of course, also fiber needs because copper is limited by 250 megabit VDSL. And here also, companies are looking for fiber exploration, and here we have listed them. It's Deutsche Glasfaser, it's Telekom as well, Vodafone, Deutsche Giganetz, Leonet, Unsere Grüne Glasfaser in Germany. So, a lot of companies are going into dense areas with immense build-out costs. I come later on to that. And here we have that greenfield approach, and I would say it is normal in Germany, it is in every mouth, but you also know that we are that overbuilt world in Germany.
Here, also, the main parts of overbuilding networks are taking place in these greenfield approaches here, because, for example, Deutsche Glasfaser is going into a small city and saying, "Oh, you only have copper. Now, I'm in that city." Weeks later, it could happen that Deutsche Telekom, who in former times rejected that area, is saying, "Oh, I'm also now going into that city," and here, overbuilding Deutsche Glasfaser. When we come to the right-hand side, exactly again, 21 million households. We are in the big cities. Big cities, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich. When I look at our footprint, Leipzig, and so on and so on. And here, most of the professional housing association are doing their business. And coming back to that number of 750 I mentioned before, here, Tele Columbus has its home turf.
Vodafone as well, coming from Kabel Deutschland and Unitym edia, for example, they integrated ten and six years ago. And here the concession agreements are necessary to access the tenants of the landlords or the housing associations. And here, the demand is driven also by the housing associations. The good thing is, it is also supported by the housing associations. Very important to know this differentiating points in Germany, and this is also important, to connect a household in a rural area, you are immediately above EUR 1,000 or even EUR 2,000 per household to connect this household to an FTTH network.
Coming to the right-hand side in A and B cities, here comes the advantages of or the advantage of Tele Columbus ducts in the ground, and we are one of at least I would say the cheapest deploying fiber company in Germany or near to that. I come later also to that point. Very important to know this greenfield or urban city, A city, B city approach. This is what is our plan. So we started 2023, in the middle is 2028 and 2035. 2035 means from our perspective, okay, the deployment will go on into that area of time. Germany says they want to achieve a full fiberization of the land of Germany, the government said in 2030.
We are not quite sure about, but definitely will reach this amount. Important to know for you is that this doesn't mean when coming back to 750, housing association or the housing association business. Very important to know is that we are linked with our fiber rollout, with the housing associations, and here, in many cases, with their renovation cycles of their, the areas, their buildings. And this is very important to know because deploying fiber doesn't mean signing fiber contracts and locking up these housing associations. Because in our point of view, I mentioned it several times before, the cake, the fiber cake in Germany with big housing associations will be sliced in the next 5 years, I would say.
Because we are right now signing contracts with housing associations, which are telling us: "We want to have fiber in our footprint. We want to have fiber with you, Tele Columbus, but let's start in 2028, 2029 and 2030," or even later, depending what their wish is. And they know, because here I will take my renovations, I will do an isolation on my buildings, and for that I also combine these building measures on my, in my households with a fiber rollout. So this is deployment, not signing contracts. By deployment of these fiber rollouts, our complete business will change. When I look at the gross profit split in 2023, of course, we are now the highest one is with IP already, but TV is very dominant. And TV is a dominant player overall in the next years. Service revenue will decline.
I come later on to that why, but it is a stable base in some cases. On the housing side, is a declining base, but nevertheless, a stable revenue stream will be linked to our budget. But the gross profit share of IP takes more and more percentages out of that graph here and will end up in 35% in a dominant way, I would say, in that case. So ending that introduction session, what are our four strategic pillars? For us, and I will come later on to that again, we, as Tele Columbus, with our customer relations to housing associations, with our profile in urban areas, have a unique competitive advantage compared to other competitors. We hired a seasoned management. We are in the ramp-up process, near to finish it.
So when we come later again to our performance, you have to have in mind that a lot of team members used to the fixed line market in the past, only entered during the course of the last year. So hopeful and definitely they will pace on and bring a higher pace into the company, for the next 12 months or for the years and years are coming. We have a strategic plan, exact plan, a complete rollout plan and so on, and we can outline or will outline this. And this is new, for most of you, we are right now exploring the opportunities of a possible NetCo, ServCo split for the future. So I already talked about the competitive advantages. So what are they?
So, again, the market surrounding Germany and the speed demand, housing associations I already mentioned. What is the exact network competition or footprint competition? I will talk to you about this topic. Speed and price advantages in our footprint, consumer sales, what are here our strategic pillars or advantages? And upgrade FTTH rollout and cost advantages. I will cover shareholder support of our shareholders, and the team. The management team, again, makes a difference. And this will be the overview for the next minutes. This slide you already know. I just mentioned the graph below, but when you look above, very interesting, what does it mean? So when I look at 2024, there is a monthly gigabit appetite of a German household of 304 gigabits, which he is pumping over the network.
Right now, he's doing it in Germany, again, mostly via VDSL. And what you are seeing here are the exact numbers, which are estimated in Germany, how this speed hunger appetite will grow. So 2024, 300 gigabits per month. It will triple, nearly triple in the next four years. It will double at least to 2026. And now the biggest question is: Where is the tipping point where the customer, the VDSL line, which a customer is used to, bought maybe seven years ago, six years ago, is not enough? And what we are seeing in our inflow is that it starts beginning, that it is not enough, and this plays in our strategy. Again, these, here you are 750. Here is the footprint.
Our footprint, so coming from Hamburg and Schwerin in the north, then you see on the, in the eastern part of Germany, we are strong, nearly in every country here. It's Berlin, it's Leipzig, it's Dresden, it's Halle. These are our biggest cities. Jena, Erfurt. We are also in Hesse, in Offenbach and Frankfurt. We are in Nuremberg, in Munich, but also in Baden-Württemberg, in Lörrach. And these are, this is our footprint. The good thing is, managing a footprint is work to do. So we, like I said, the housing association is our entrance. We have to manage 750 customers, and this is our footprint. This we are doing on a individual basis, individual contracts, of course, but covering 70% of our footprint.
When I look at this left side, again, 20 cities, we only have to concentrate on 20 core cities and covering here, again, some also of the smaller housing association, which then stands for 75% of our footprint. So this also means efficiency. Efficiency on planning, efficiency on marketing activities, efficiency on sales activities, and this also is a unique position for Tele Columbus. Okay, this is my wonderful footprints. Because I get footprint chart, because I get a lot of questions. Oh, how you can compete with Deutsche Telekom or with Vodafone and their competition on fiber, for example. What I say, The competition in a housing association is like this: So my 23 million households are thinking like this left building.
On the left-hand side, right now, on a TC DOCSIS 3.1, I have a star network in the household and the copper network of Deutsche Telekom. So right now, I'm competing against 250 VDSL with my 500 or 1 gig products. We will transfer our company into a fiber company, and, and here overbuilding takes place, and we are overbuilding ourselves, the DOCSIS 3.1 network, and exchange it into a fiber network. Year on year, pace by pace, we also then will, in some time, will shut down the DOCSIS network, and the only network which is running in the building, compared to the copper network, is the FTTH network from TC.
Here we are then, yeah, you know what, what bandwidth is 1 gig, 2 gig, symmetric, and so on, are competing again, against 250 megabits of Deutsche Telekom. And for that, on the right-hand side, the pie chart is right now the penetration on a TC retail, which is 99% right now, because we are just deploying on the wholesale side, is not so high, but this is our growth, not only opportunity, it is just the way the market is functioning. We will getting pace on growth, and I come later on to that, that we already did, but we will getting penetration onto our network. We will getting penetration over the years, over the fiberization, we will do it on the DOCSIS network, as well on the fiber network.
And then also wholesale taking place on our network, and the market shares are growing in the footprint in the house. And this is important to know. We are not competing against a fiber connection of Deutsche Telekom, which is offered in the market. Because in the building, which is here, Kaiserin- Augusta- Allee, where we are sitting in the building, this is a competition which is taking place. Very important to distinguish here, the footprint. And this is again, our strategy, and Jochen Busch, my colleague, will talk you through his strategy on the consumer side. Just, what you see on the left side is, with the dark blue, this is our product offering and standard prices. We are not offering a 100 megabit product, just for your information.
And on the 400 side, and on the 100 side, Deutsche Telekom is of course offering such product in the market, but not in the building, like I said before. So you can choose, you can choose 45 EUR for a 100 Mbps on VDSL. Or you can choose to pay the same price with 10 times the speed. And this is our strategy: times X the speed, value for money, service for money. And this is how we are gaining customers right now. This is our strategy. Not to mention too much, because Jochen also needs to tell you this fantastic story. And on the right-hand side, this is what we already achieved and what we transformed the company. So performance is important for us.
It's wonderful to lay out wonderful networks, if it is on DOCSIS or if it is on fiber. And activate. So homes activated, not all right, not homes passed, is the measures we want to set into the company. So homes activated are important. Paying customers are important. So this company is getting pace on network. So what you are seeing here are the net adds per quarter, so 30,000 in the year 2022. We entered in 2023, so we doubled the net adds, and this is getting pace. And a very important look at Q4, that is our best-selling month ever. 25,000 net adds we entered in. I get the answer, yeah, because of special projects. Of course, of special projects.
The good thing is, with 750 housing association customers, or even with 1,000, or with 1,200, you can create your projects. This is what we are creating our growth path on. So, this is, what, what is driving growth in the future on the IP side. Again, you remember the slide before, rural areas, urban areas. Here is an example, urban competition and suburban competition. So when I'm in the suburban area, it is normal to have build-out costs between EUR 1,200, even EUR 2,400 connect, euros per building and, per household. In the urban cities, it's more EUR 800, between EUR 800 and EUR 1,500. In Tele Columbus, of course, we also see EUR 800, yeah, in some cases we also see EUR 1,000.
We also see less, but the average is something around 650, 650 EUR per household. And this is level three and level four. Level four, building out level four is a specialty of Tele Columbus. We have 200 own craftsmen on the ground, so also we have build-out capacities. And when we are saying FTTH rollout, this is a number, and this is a unique advantage. Why it is so? Nearly 80%... because of our ducts already lying in the ground. So 80, near to 80%, we only have, and the biggest amount of costs is digging in the ground. We only have to cross meters, where we have to dig less than 2, 2 meters.
I think it's 1.9 meters because of our deck facilities in the ground, which is also a unique point for Tele Columbus in the German market. When I talk about FTTH, I, of course, talk about open access in these buildings when we are deploying FTTH. Very important, because this is also then the baseline for our wholesale strategy, stepping in during the course of this year already, but also in the coming years on fiber. Fiber rollout costs money. It costs money, like I said before, EUR 650. Good that it isn't EUR 2,000 whatever, but for sales, it's never enough. For that, we did a refinancing in the last year, which in the last year was the main work.
We've closed it in March this year, and get a capital injection on top of it, from our shareholders by EUR 300 million. The good thing is we can put these EUR 300 million completely into our networks, more extensively infrastructure, with several funds invested all over the world in infrastructure projects and United Internet, known in Germany as a telco expert company. So with this combination, the best shareholder combination, I would say, you can have in the market, we are really, we are funded, and we have the support of our shareholders. Very important for us. It was a way to go last year, but we already achieved it, and this is good for as a baseline for the company.
A little bit more, so me to the team, so Christian Biechteler, and where the team is coming from. So you can see, the telco industry, especially also, former TDC members, Telefónica members, 1&1 members in the team, but also Kabel Deutschland and Vodafone background. So we are on board since last year. This is Christian and, Michael and me. We started in February last year. Jochen joined us in summer last year, and Niko also in summer last year. And the important thing is, it is not only us. We are helping the company, but steering the company is the C minus one level.
And the good thing is here, that we also attract tons of people to come to Tele Columbus and transform the company. And there is really a change, not only in the C-suite, but also on the change on the N minus one level, near to 60%, to bring pace, to bring performance to the company. I give you a short update on current trading as well in the second part. So current trading is the result of what we did in the last 12 months. And here are the 4 biggest points, what we did. The pace of change in sales was our biggest topic, number 1. We have to deliver it. We want to deliver it. We delivered. This is a good thing to know.
I will come to that later on. Stabilizing housing association business by, at the same time, talking about the bulk migration, second biggest point last year, and the fiber migration of the company was done in the housing industry section, already done and in progress. Change, change management, change attitude, bring this into the company, not only in the sales, not only in the housing, not only in the B2B department, bring it into finance, bring it to wholesale, bring it into the PR department. Whatever is taking place is already done, and like I mentioned before, the completion of the A&E transaction. So let's dive into these buckets a little bit more. To be honest, I love this chart. On the left-hand side, it is right, we are the fastest growing fixed IP operator in Germany.
What you see here, Tele Columbus, they bought in 2022. Well, they are strong, but getting pace is something different. And getting pace takes place in 2023, and it's lasting and it's growing again. And when you look at the others, so United Internet and Vodafone are losing. The others are growing as well, but they are also slowing down, and we are growing now on a 9.3% level. First numbers I can show you because we have our call next week, but I want to give you a glance of that. So 9.3% growth on a growing base, we delivered in Q1. In Q4, we delivered 9%. And this is what we see or what we show, want to show to you.
There is the opportunity for growth, especially on the IP side. So, with the focus on the housing business, to stabilize this business, we did at the same time, we rebuilt our B2B unit. We injected life to the wholesale department. Sorry, but something is not working here with my micro. Sorry for that. Hopefully, you can understand me now better. The multi-channel approach, Jochen will speak to that later. Bulk migration, and by doing that here, is also when we talk with housing association and bring then FTTH into the buildings and also the DOCSIS 3.1 rollout, you have to deliver on the technical side: planning, building, and running the network. And this is a fantastic job from our technical department.
So we did it, and the building capacities are secured for the coming years. Bulk migration. Biggest point in every call, biggest point in every discussion, bulk migration in the German market. I would say that, yeah, you can compare companies, but at the end, it is sometimes also apples and oranges or whatever. So these are our numbers. This is what we are looking for, and this also differentiated us to other companies. So very important for you to know, the system in which we are migrating into the individual TV contracts is known in the company since decades. And what you see in the number is that already near to 60% of our housing association contracts are in this system, where bulk migration contracts have to migrate in. Why is that?
This is the role and the typical positioning of Tele Columbus. In the eastern part of Germany, it is since decades normal that there are individual contracts. For that, the bulk migration definitely is a topic for us, but a less, yeah, changing topic than in other companies in the former cable operator industry in Germany. This also, when you look at the gross profit, 75% of the gross profit is not linked to bulk contracts of the company. So yes, we have to manage it, but there are also some other opportunities we are gaining out of it, and this is what we bring also to the company.
There is a topic, we have to solve it, we have to manage it, and where are the advantages we can take out of these points? Here are also some of the advantages, because we already started migrating. These are the slides we have to do. We had did in 2023, 60,000 migrations, households. In Q1, 110. We are now in 160, and in Q3, 665,000 households to migrate. Very important for you to know, what we are doing here is, together with the housing association, remember, biggest part, 750 co-op talks and cooperation models. We are partnering with the housing associations. They are sending out letters, announcing us.
There is a change, that something happens, and this takes place 5-6 months before the migration date. And this is what we are also saying, there is a pre-sales phase. So when you see 665,000 households already, they come to be migrated, but we already tackled them, and also already signed twenty more than, or something around 20% of these households for TV single contracts. We did that also with this Q2, where we are achieving over 30%. We did that also on Q1, which is overachieving or this achieving of 40%. We did it in the past. And now the project goes on. When the migration date is there, we will at least be in 5-6 months later on as well.
So migration, bulk migration, net change, effect, and date, for us, is something around Q4 this year or even Q1 2025, and going through these households again and again. Like it's mentioned on the left-hand side, we are still targeting 50%-60% of these migrating customers. Yeah. Very important to know that we launched, and we come later on to that as well, a next-gen TV platform, which supports our story, that when we are in these buildings, the three-P share is higher, and we are building up here. We already signed contracts, like mentioned here.
So what you are seeing here, that these contracts being valid then in the system in June, July or August, and this is also then also with a higher IP share, also IP. Right now, net sales in our logic will be an add into our system in the future. Yeah? And this is how we are tackling this topic together with the housing association, together with all our sales channels, together with the whole company. Transformation of a company when a new management team comes in is what are the biggest topics? Like I mentioned, and is shown here again, B2C sales organization to pump in B2C sales blood into the company, performance-driven, was topic number one. Network in a FTTH company is topic number two. So, Michael and his team concentrating on changing the network.
We call it a One Net project, that out of a fragmented network, we simplifying processes, we simplifying, the network, bringing down costs and bring it to one network. We rebuild certain areas, and this is also, even also in the CFO area, we are rebuilding the organization and are changing systems, processes, linkages to the company, concentrating, like I said, on performance, on EBITDA growth, on operating free cash flow, and so on, and so on. B2B sales organization, the same with wholesale. We are ramping up. We are adapting to the market and changing here also the system. The same on the technical IT and production side. So this is our tip.
Our org, where we implemented the normal process steps, plan, build, run service system and service network, very important to revamp across the entire organization. So we are looking at processes, IT system, procurement, FTE, external. So FTE, I'm cutting costs on FTE. For that, I hired expensive external ones. Don't do that again. So in-sourcing external ones, these are our strategic pillars also on the cost side. So sales is important, network deployment is important, but also financial performance and, yeah, in line with results and so on, is very important for that company again, and in the focus. Like I said, one of our topics was to do the refinancing, or like we call it, or like it was at the end, the amend and extend process.
So, at the end, for us, very important, there is a new shareholder contribution by EUR 300 million. Lenders and note holders extended until January 1, 2029. The three hundred million, also very important for us on the senior secured note, completely picked here, the interest rates on the term loan, mostly picked, on the interest rate. So the three hundred million shareholder contribution goes directly into the business and in the focus areas of our business. This I showed you before. This is 2023, and now a short glance on our Q1. Very important for you, we will bring the results next week, but, because it's so near, we also are willing to show you a first glance, a first estimate, primarily prior to our releases on these results.
This is what I mentioned before, what you see on the left-hand side. For me, this is, on the one hand side, related to our project on the bulk migration. But nevertheless, this is exactly where we want to bring the company in. So what we are seeing here on the Q1, we did a tremendous jump on bundle shares, bundle and speed tier shares, so above its bundle. So we are near to 50% that every IP customer takes a TV bundle. And on the tier mix, and this is wonderful because, of course, it stands for higher ARPUs. Near 50% is taking 400 and/or, or higher than 250 megabits. So are moving away or, or, or signing up for, for our coax contract and moving away from the DSL line.
This is what I explained to you before. They are doing that because the bandwidth hunger is high. When we are comparing our conditions to the prices and speed tiers to the offering in the building, to the in-market competition, we are the price, the service, and the speed performer in the building, so customers are changing their contracts. The good thing is, this brings us for the Q1, compared to prior year, a 1.3% revenue growth, EUR 48 million EBITDA. We invested EUR 53 million CapEx. We added 15,000 net adds on the IP side. We will bring a little bit more glance next week to that.
15,000 is less than Q4 numbers, of course, because it is seasonality, but nevertheless, we already signed in, like I mentioned before, because with this bundle share, we already signed in, contracts on IP. And when the TV bulk migration takes place into an individual contract in June, in June, July, and so on, these already sold IP customer contracts are then also ticking in as a net add. Like I mentioned before, right now, more than 100,000 customers migrated on that side. Good. Focused strategic plan. So what are our, or what is our exact plan? What are the pillars, what we want to do? And here on that slide, my colleagues are presenting you, Christian, on the housing association side. Again, future-proof. What is the concession footprint and what is the linkage?
This is also new for the company and for me. It is the hidden sales channel for Jochen's side. What is the partnership with the housing association? Also, again, a unique pillar of the company. Jochen will talk to you too, what our channels are doing, what is our offering in the market, and what we are aiming for, what we want to do, what we want to change on penetration on IP. IP is the business where we are will count our business on, definitely. For that, we are building our networks. Michael will talk to you what he did in the past and is willing to do in the future with his teams on harmonizing the technology and the IT environment. IT, biggest important pillar for every telco company.
Again, the network investment is important. At the end of his slides, he also bring some flavor to other projects and core propositions of our company. And at the end of that session, Nico give a glance of the business plan going on. Okay, for that, I hand over to Christian. Christian, please.
Thank you, Markus. Yes, hello from my side. One of our important assets of Tele Columbus are our relationships to our housing companies. Most contracts have very long contract terms of 8-15 years, and in the event of renewal, it's a great opportunity to negotiate a fiber migration to FTTH. The technical realization often depends on the modernization cycles of the housing companies. But that's no problem, because mostly we stay now on the coax network with attractive products, and so the migration is very efficient. And as Markus said, we have homes connected footprint IP of 2.3 million households. More than 130,000 housing units are already built in FTTH. More than 350,000 housing units are contracted and signed and will build in the next months and years.
More than 300,000 housing units are in the sales pipeline. The majority of these contracts are very big Tele Columbus customers in the top cities. During the rollout, it's a great opportunity to address a lot of small and medium-sized customers, so that we will sign a lot of these open 1.6 million households in the next months and years. The fiberization will give us a sales push for our own retail business as well as the open access wholesale business. Related to our account management, we have very strong relationships. In 2023, we had a stable footprint, slightly growing, and we expect the same in 2024. The partnership, the relationship, will help us to fiberize our footprint, but not only in terms of fiberization, but also in terms of commercialization. What does it mean?
The housing company and Tele Columbus are partners, and the housing company informs their tenants about the current cable net provider, Tele Columbus, who supplies internet and TV. That gives us a lot of joint marketing campaigns. Here are some examples: Our first aim is to be present in every house. That begins in the house entrance, with posting notices on the notice boards. We are doing together co-branded mailings to announce sales agents who are in the properties to sell IP and TV. We are part on the tenant apps, especially in larger housing companies. We want to make sure that the housing companies informs new tenants who moves in, that they can buy internet and TV. So the cooperation is very efficient for our sales and marketing, and the partnership opens all doors for the B2C sales channels.
B2C is a good keyword now to switch to Jochen, who's responsible for the B2C department. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Christian. And a good afternoon to everyone to you. My name is Jochen. I'm running the consumer business, and I'm very happy that I can give you a bit of a flavor what we have achieved already in the last 12 months, where we are currently standing and what kind of where our proposition is at the moment, and of course, how we actually want to grow going forward. So on the next slide. It's me doing it? Wonderful. Sorry. I think, look, Markus already told you that the whole organization has undergone a mindset shift, because now we are focusing really on how to make money out of of our network, i.e., how the end customer is paying us. And this is really now a consumer-focused mindset we established over the last month in the whole organization.
I still believe my consumer organization has gone probably the biggest radical, radical shift in transformation over the last, let's say, 12 months. Because not only we actually focus on a much more performance-driven attitude, we have probably changed 50, 60% of the staff, but most importantly, we reshuffled the whole organizational structure. On the right-hand side. You can see, is it on the left-hand side? You can see already the four categories and the four sales channels we have established in the last 12 months. Now we have hired dedicated people to run an online channel, a door-to-door, a retail, and a telesales channel. Let me quickly explain to you what it actually means.
In online, of course, we sell via our web page, which is pŸur.com, pŸur.de, and we probably still do 60%-70% of our online customers coming via our own web page. And of course, the other, let's say 30%-40%, we're selling via our affiliates, which in Germany is mostly Check24 or Verivox. This is quite important because our biggest competitors, like the Deutsche Telekom's and the Vodafone of the world, they have actually the other balance. They sell more via the or less on their own web page and more via affiliates. In door-to-door and retail, was one organization before I joined.
Although they have very different skill sets, and we need very different skill sets, if you knock on the door to convince a customer to sign, or if you're in a shop and somebody comes in, mostly with a service request. So we have separated that and hired, again, two dedicated people to run it. In door-to-door, we used to have 160 active agents running around each day to knock on doors. We increased already this to 300, and this is a scarce number because a scarce math, because at the moment, everybody wants literally to have access to door-to-door people, especially with the bulk migration, the most effective way to convince people to sign individual contracts is on a door-to-door level.
And here we actually, as I said, we increased almost to 300 active agents per month. On the retail, which is stationary, selling, we do it via our own 42 shops, and also via, of course, retailers like distribution organizations, MediaMarktSaturn, Freenet, and so on, so forth, which actually have a distribution network in Germany. And also here, we already were able to increase our active performing shops from 150 to roughly, again, roughly also to more than 300 shops, which are selling our products going forward. Telesales. Telesales was combined with base management. Also, here we have now a dedicated telesales specialist and a dedicated base management specialist. And here, actually, we set up new organizations and new agents to focus on selling rather than service, as it used to be.
So I think what we have created in the last 9-12 months is really an organization which can perform, and is set up to perform in the right way going forward. Besides that, besides, you know, the base management and the four dedicated channels, we also reshaped and repositioned PŸUR as a brand. Because PŸUR as a brand was not, had no clear focus, and now we focus, as Markus pointed out, as a clear value for money provider. And we're going out into the market with a more aggressive marketing stance. We're going a bit against competition. We make it more fun. So we actually try to reset the whole branding, and, and this was already recognized. You can see on the lower part of the, of the page that we have won the Connect test in 4 categories.
So the Connect test is one of the biggest and most prominent tests in broadband as well as in mobile in Germany. But they have different use cases from Grandma, who uses 50 Mbits, to really the high-speed surfing with 1 gig. And we won in all four categories as the best player in the market, value for money player, which is not only its service, its latency, it's of course, price as well. So we want all four where we competed. And just recently, early this week, the new CHIP test came out, is also a super important one, and they actually compared the different providers per state, so Bavaria, Saxony, and so on and so forth. And in two states, in Saxony and Baden-Württemberg, we come number one. In Bavaria, we became number two.
These were the three states where we competed as well. On the top, so it works. I just want to say the repositioning works, and we are, we are very happy that, so far we have achieved, also a recognition from external, from independent, houses, what we have done. On the top, we just gave you a bit of a comparison on terms of pricing, because we deliberately took a chart from March, because in the last, let's say, in Q2 and Q3, crunch time because of bulk migration, everybody's offering crazy, crazy promotions. All of our competition is coming out with super aggressive pricing because now is the time to win the customer.
So we said, "Okay, in order to show you where we are positioned on a, on a, let's say, level playing field, not in this aggressive period where we are now, we take a snapshot," and this was in, in March. And we also compared, let's say, the two most liquid products, the cable products. So Vodafone and ourselves are selling most of our, products in 250 Mbps, and the DSL, they sell the 100. So they have the premium is the 250 DSL, and our premium is the 1 gig. So we thought, "Okay, let's compare the most liquid ones." And you can see on the left side where we are against Vodafone. Yes, we are cheaper than Vodafone....
However, we don't have the advantage of a mobile discount, and this is the advantage what Telecom and, and Vodafone definitely have, and they play it. And when you're a mobile customer at Vodafone, you get a 10% discount on your mobile contract, but we have to basically discount them, to, to their pricing. You see that we are basically even with, with, with the, with the Vodafone pricing. And yes, we of course, we are a bit more cheaper than the Telecom, as well as other, operators in the market who are selling mostly DSL or resellers of DSL.
On the three P, which does include TV, we are also aggressive because we need to, of course, attract our people to stay, and this is now a huge opportunity with the bulk migration, to come out with an innovative TV product, which we have done in February, with PŸUR TV. And you can see a similar pattern that we are, yes, slightly below, but not far below if you'd really include the mobile discount, especially in Vodafone and Telecom. So again, I think we are well positioned in the market, and our strategy so far worked out, and this is also what we wanna do going forward. The last slide I want to show to you is where we wanna go with our organization. And Markus already have shown you our penetration uplift and the net sales we can generate each quarter.
Still, this company has a penetration of the network, of our own network, which is around, I don't know, 24, 25, 26% at the moment. And this is a huge opportunity, because we believe we can bring this company to a penetration between 50, 55%, which is in market benchmark or market standard, within the next three to four years. It's a massive challenge. It's a massive achievement, what we want to do, but, nevertheless, we believe we can do so with this new setup. And this is the light blue line you can see on the left side of the chart. In this left, the light blue line will actually slow down once we have reached the 50, 55, 40, 45% penetration mark.
So and then it will be, of course, much harder to get new customers in the same amount as you lose customers because the churn becomes high and so forth. But then our wholesale strategy kicks in, and this is the rather greenish line on the bottom. So at the end, what we want to achieve as Tele Columbus is an ongoing growth in order to really go up to the 60%-70% penetration in the years 2028 and further. And how we do this, definitely FTTH helps us. And I wanted to show you three different projects we are doing, and what we have already achieved in these kind of types of FTTH projects. On the left side, you see a greenfield infrastructure. We don't do a lot of that because this is contracts with municipalities.
However, in case we do it, we achieve a very quick uplift in terms of penetration. And this project, three months after we actually started the project and were able to connect households, we had in 3 months already 15% penetration. And each quarter, you can see, we actually added up, I don't know, 8, 5, 8, 10 percent percentage points of penetration. So at the moment, after, was it 12 months? No, 24 months exactly, we have achieved already a penetration of 66%. But as I said, these are not very much, not a lot of projects. In the middle one, we have new builds, but these are contracts with housing associations, and when they build new housing. And the good thing is that is, in these houses, there is no alternative.
We are the only supplier to actually make internet available unless they go via satellite or whatever, a mobile. However, this is of course a huge penetration uplift in a very short time frame. Here you can see within 12 to 24 months, we were able to achieve already 70, 80% of a penetration. The most projects going forward, however, will be overbuilt. We're literally, as Markus said, we will overbuild our HFC footprint with fiber. And you can see on the bottom, this is not going to happen overnight. We actually step by step overbuild from 0 to 27, 47, 52, and so to 93% of our existing network.
But what you can see is how much percentage penetration we can literally gain each quarter in order to actually uplift our overall penetration. And here, as I said, the most uplift is actually between -7%, because this is where we're pre-marketing already the service, up to, let's say, you know, 6-9 months after we started to execute the overbuild. And then, of course, at a certain point, you achieve similar kind of growth rates as we achieve in FTTH in our coax network. But I think I just wanted to show you that FTTH is a huge enabler for achieving the growth we want to do on the left-hand side.
So this was a quick overview of what we want to do in consumer going forward, but this all works only if the technicians are doing the right things. And hence, welcome, Michael. He will give you a bit of an overview of what we're doing on the technical side. Thank you very much.
... Thanks, Jochen. And it only works if our sales guys sell, so this is why there's a good synthesis together. So my name is Michael. I'm in charge for technology, IT, and production, and I'm trying to explain to you how we all this bring into life. First, we have started to harmonize our entire technology and IT environment to enable all what was said before, right? So we are coming from, and this is very important to note, we are coming from a very traditional sequential build-up of networks, which have been built to distribute TV signals over 40 years. So this is where we come from.
So a lot of our infrastructures and services and service platforms have been built over the last decade to serve for the purpose of distributing TV signals. And now, as Markus said, we are in the process of migrating the business into an ISP, which is also still dealing with TV, but in a different means, with different medium. So on the left-hand side, you can see our current model of structures, with lots of interconnections, different access types, different backbones, different peering points, which all leads to in a very fragmented topology. And on the right-hand side, this is what we are aiming by the course of this year, to have a little bit more cleaned up, more homogenized, more standardized access systems, fewer peerings, fewer interconnections, more efficient network connections.
But also, and this is the important point about economies of scale. So leveraging our infrastructure in a better and a more meaningful way, and by that, also focus on standardization, leveraging our existing economies of scale, and last but not least, also enable an efficient backbone and transport production structure. So this is what we're trying to do with the harmonization of our technology and IT platform. This embraces the BSS and OSS systems, which shall enable us to move from a TV cable operator towards a scalable and efficient ISP. So this is really the purpose of our harmonization program, called One Net. The second priority we have, of course, is to invest in the best network to an efficient and well-minded CapEx envelope, which basically implies open access.
Which implies a structural deployment cost at a very competitive level, in especially our dense urban MDU focus. So basically, our networks, our infrastructure today is located very much around urban, dense urban areas and focusing very much also on MDUs. We are not focusing on SDUs at all. And lastly, it's also important to note that we have 85% of our network deployed in a very efficient star architecture, facilitating a pretty easy approach to upgrading towards FTTH. So migrating from a historic DOCSIS HFC structure towards a future-proof, scalable FTTH structure. So this is our purpose, so we are not building on a green field.
Last but not least, on level four networks, so the last mile in the households, we of course see overbuilding, but likely we will overbuild ourselves as we are migrating from an existing HFC infrastructure towards a competitive FTTH infrastructure. So this is in our main footprint, the key on the right-hand side, you see the conversion. So today, we the majority is on HFC footprint, and over time, we are gradually migrating towards a 50% or so FTTB, FTTH structure with a residual of HFC. But these five years are critical, as Markus also pointed out, to keep the momentum in these footprint areas. So this is our second priority.
Our third priority really is a little bit on explaining to you how to build these networks. You can see on the left-hand side some competitors who build mainly Homes Passed, which means they are focusing very much on level three network build, don't focus very much on level four. If we build networks, we mainly count Homes Connected, which means level three and level four. Cost allocation here is roughly 50% on level four, 50% on level three, which is the wide area network. And this enables us, if we are building our existing footprint on a very attractive cost per Homes Connected, which is very competitive against other players in the German market, especially in urban MDU areas. This means we are not going for greenfield.
This also implies we are not going for new build areas, for complete new build areas. And also, we are using our in-house building capabilities, including our own capacities on the layout works. And lastly, it's also important to note that this, of course, includes—excludes, sorry, excludes price inflation for material as well as labor costs. So this is important for understanding the building plans. Lastly, it's also important, and we will show you in a minute, a video really practically how this works. It's important to note it's all about processes, so very efficient processes in-house, but also with our civil works partners. It's also important to note to think and plan into clusters and really execute those clusters, and that's how we want to show you in that video.
So firstly, video starts. You see an urban, typical German urban structure with multi-dwelling units, buildings. Here you see a street cabinet, which basically is the closest infrastructure against the house, and from there, we build to the basement. So from the street cabinet, we build the fiber line to the basement, where it arrives in the basement unit. Here, we connect it to the building distributions point, where the fiber connection arrives from the street cabinet. And in this distribution point, we are splicing the fibers towards the homes, which is located in the building. So we are splicing the fiber.
We're preparing everything in, in the distribution to make sure the fiber line can be moved up to the houses, to the living rooms. Here, you see the pipes. We ask for authorization to modernize the cable network towards the fiber network, so we are asking each and every tenant. Here you see the workers trying to install the fiber line in the apartment. Here, our colleague is preparing the fiber termination point, which will be installed in a minute in the wall of the apartment. That's the wall box. So we are installing this. The hole behind is for the fiber line, which will very soon be directed towards the basement.
Here you can see the fiber line being injected in the wall. Here, it arrives very soon in the basement through an old chimney. It can also be a duct, a cable duct, which has been laid out in decades ago. So this is also the technicians know this local facility very well, and this is also part of our asset. We know the plans and the houses very well. This is a big advantage. So the technician acknowledges the fiber, connected to the distribution point in a minute, so that the guys up in the apartment can prepare the fiber termination point, as he just does it in a minute. Now, the termination unit will be connected, and we are twisting on top of the unit, the ONT, the optical network terminal.
So this is the last point where the fiber optical cable terminates. We are connecting the CPE, after it has been provisioned and activated in the back end. And here we go. That's how we work, and this is pretty easy. I think the point here is our key asset is we know the house, we know the plan, we know the local cabling in the level four, and this is why I'm saying Homes Connected means it's level three and level four. Most of our competitors working level three only, and this is where the, you know, the connection happens on level four, and this is why it's important to understand this mechanism. Our fourth priority, if you can switch the page, is what we, what we call adjacent or complementary business. If you move to the next page, please. Ah, that's me. Sorry.
I'm sorry. We are moving to the complementary business, adjacent business. So we have three areas. One is our TV offering. As TV is part of our DNA, we have a competitive state-of-the-art IPTV streaming solution ready, which Jochen talked about, which helps us to innovate that marketplace as well for our customers. Secondly, we have developed our B2B capabilities in a sense that we're driving very close technology B2B solutions. We developed the solutions, i.e., data center solutions. We have some significant data centers across Germany, which we can utilize by connectivity, but also solutions. We are connecting with our partner sales channels. And lastly, on our first priority, I told you about the harmonization of our network.
We are expanding our B2B footprint across the entire Tele Columbus footprint, and to make sure that where we can offer B2B and B2C and wholesale product is a consistent footprint, and I think this is our main aim on the B2B side. Lastly, let me mention that we are upscaling our wholesale activities with an action plan to wholesale HFC, as well as optical fiber lines. We have two major wholesale partner on the HFC side, Telefónica, Stiegeler. On the bottom of the slide, you see potential partners on the fiber side. As we are speaking, we are negotiating with some of those contracts, and our aim is to connect an additional customers on the fiber line for wholesale. That's the priorities on the production IT and technology side I wanted to share with you.
With that, I hand over to Nicolai, who will tell us about how we all back this up with financials. Thank you.
Thank you, Michael. My name is Nicolai, and I'm currently acting as interim CFO since last August. I'm supporting the company, and I'm happy to share some insights on the business plan. As you've mentioned, most of it is just a summary of what we've previously seen. It's just being translated into the numbers, and that is what is important also to the financial markets and the financial community. So if we look at the main business plan value drivers, and on the top, it's basically related around the IP homes connected. And we're coming 2023 from the 4% we've seen previously on FTTH. We're moving into 11%, 2024, and targeting around the 40%-50% FTTH and B, as Michael just mentioned.
We're also focusing on the 2-3 million core footprint, that is basically for us, the main ground for value creation. On the IP penetration, when we looked at what Jochen was explaining on the retail side, on the one hand, and on wholesale, just for Michael, we are just starting with the wholesale program. Basically, it has been set up. We have the first customers on board on the network, and this is moving on. Previously, retail is the main focus, shifting on the sales channels, reaching around 30%+ in 2024, and then moving on into the penetration towards the 50-56% in 2028.
That is the main underlying business plan value driver, which then also drives the revenue mix, which is shifting, and we've seen it in the past, being more on the TV side, with, with the majority now switching it, that we've already surpassed TV with the internet and phone revenues, expecting around 40% this year, and then moving on towards 60% in the year 2028. All this basically drives the revenue, the top line, coming from around EUR 460 million target this year, going into the EUR 600 million and EUR 670 million towards 2028, with EBITDA almost growing by EUR 200 million, from EUR 200 million to EUR 400 million. That is the target. And on the CapEx ratio, we are now in a very CapEx-intense period of this company.
We've spoken about fiberization, that is, most of the CapEx goes directly into the networks, but we also have CapEx, which is related to our B2C sales activities, mainly commissions for external partners, like Jochen mentioned, door-to-door retail point of sales. All this is being, not being on our payroll, but we pay success-based capital. And then we also see CPEs, which are related to our growing business. And then if all this works out and goes into place, we finally move from spending money to making money and try to get a cash conversion up and running towards 30%+ as of 2028 going forward. And behind this, and I'm not gonna read all this, you have access to the slides, but it's just a summary.
What happens on the top line, we see CAGRs that are quite impressive, about 15%, on IP and phone, reaching the penetration of, we said 40-something% in 2028. We do see an uplift on CAGR. One is volume, which grows, but the other one is also that ARPU is growing. We expect around about a 2% ARPU uplift, and this is driven by up-tiering to higher speeds, by upselling from the base management, and also people coming in, actually using the highest speed tier products at reasonable prices, but still helping us to improve and grow ARPU.
Wholesale, we mentioned, it's going to be quite a substantial business, around EUR 40 million of revenue contribution, and, we do see an ARPU growth of around 4% year-on-year, also related to up-tiering and, the set up, the way the contracts are related. On the TV side, we currently have the split of round about 65% individual and 35% bulk now being tackled due to the regulation change that we've talked about. We do see ARPU declining on the TV side. This is going to be something that is happening also out of the bulk migration. And, in the end, we support, and, Michael just mentioned it, that we have this NGTV product on, and it is something to strengthen the TV proposition and also help to slow down the, TV ARPU decline.
B2B, we mentioned as well, quite an important section as the fourth one, also with the challenging CAGR on the revenue growth side. We expect around 8% to grow year-on-year. And then we basically focus on a different product mix. We had a re-setup of the sales team. We basically rearranged, we integrated also sales activities between our own B2B subsidiary, also interlinking it to the housing association customer sales. So this all helps to better work as one company and improves the situation. On the cost base, we basically have the target to keep costs rather stable and actually a bit declining, with 2% CAGR going down.
We have had investments into people, into organization and processes in the past couple of years, and we need that basically to prepare and continue with the growth assumption on the top line. We have invested in IT systems. We will do so more, and we will have the option to basically support our increasing customer base and, in the end, have service costs growing modestly. As you have a bigger base, you obviously have bigger sales, customer sales costs, and this is, however, scaling, and we're doing it on a moderately basis. The fiber extension will also help to reduce our service and maintenance costs. Some expectations is that you have roughly 50% less costs on fiber versus HFC.
And we've also managed to reduce our external signal delivery fees, also in relation to the core footprints that we're looking at. Mostly, and most important on the cash and on the spending side is CapEx. We have roughly EUR 700 million on total CapEx investments into the network between 2024 and 2028. We talked about round about 900,000 homes connected to be fiberized by 2028, at round about the 650 EUR per homes connected. And that is basically driven by what we said. One, we have the in-house construction team that Michael was already referring to, and this is somehow protecting us against very inflationary labor costs. We will have wage increases as well, but maybe less than compared to external.
and then obviously, the high density of the homes passed, with the very low distance that we have to cover on the public ground. In the end, we somehow expect that the CapEx intensity that we currently see, which is well above 40% or more, that this will decline to somehow at around 30% after 2028. Then once the rollout is completed, let's say more or less in 2035, the CapEx intensity should go down to normal levels that you would expect around 15%. With that, that's pretty much the sum of all, the strategy, summing up in the numbers and looking into the business plan. I would again hand over to Markus, who will give some introduction to the NetCo/ServCo situation.
Nico, thank you. So, here I am back again. NetCo, ServCo. By transforming or doing all this work we presented before, we are in the middle of doing what we are now analyzing. Because we are concentrating a lot on sales, on our sales department, on service. Coming to that, it is exactly that, what we might then allocate to a ServCo. We are concentrating on the NetCo, on the B2B business, on the wholesale business, and so on. And this is exactly what we are now or later on in our first ideas presenting to that would link to the NetCo. But let's dive into our thoughts on that in a more detail. So what are the backing of our thinking about NetCo/ServCo?
Of course, the separation of the network and the service improves access to capital. So, what we are thinking about is that our refinancing is done. The situation we are in with the refinancing is good. It could be better out of an operational perspective, and this leads us to our thoughts to the value levers to the NetCo/ServCo split. So simplifying also operation business is what we are doing, and this is what we are working against. Market opportunity. So when I'm looking into the market opportunity, the window of opportunity to increase focus on this NetCo side and the ServCo side is exactly that. Last week, very important week for Germany, for operators like us. There was an ANGA COM in Cologne, so the biggest crowd ever.
You have talks and meetings every half hour. Funny enough, that a lot of our ideas which we are linking to NetCo/ServCo, we get questions about or we have meetings. So we get questions about wholesale opportunities. We, do you want to do wholesale on our network? And this is exactly what we are going to dive into that NetCo ServCo split. Nevertheless, the proven concept or NetCo/ServCo is a proven concept. On the one hand side, definitely in the telco industry, or when you look at energy and so on in Germany and Europe-wide, and NetCo/ServCo is a proven concept as well. I also pass that chapter.
So access to capital, very important for our business, to fiberize our business, and this is where we want and might be having an opportunity to attract new investors, infrastructure investors. And this is why we are doing that process. I mentioned before, the wholesale and buyout opportunity is in the market. It is also in the market. I can, next page, I also would speak about it. Some of the IP operators in Germany are now thinking, "I'm investing into the business or doing wholesale business. I'm also going into the FTTH network, rural areas. When I do it in dense areas like Tele Columbus, no relationship to housing industry." How important that is, we mentioned earlier on.
So it is a window for wholesale customers, and this is why we also are aiming to split up and think about splitting up to have the wholesale unit and then the NetCo and the ServCo doing its business with wholesale opportunities. Of course, the business is changing in Germany. Of course, somebody identifies that EUR 2,400-1,800 per household, with a fiber take-up rate between 10%-20% in rural areas, are not the optimal point to do. So there are consolidation opportunities, but not only there. Throughout the bulk migration, smaller cable operators are on the market, and also with the split and this new interest in CapEx facility, optionalities are also in the market. Solution for operational goals.
So key operational task, focus on that topic, focus on that topic. We already do it, but this split is like a catalyst, doing that for the future. And here's what I mean, how the market is now trending in Germany, and what atmosphere we are right now in. I'm just missing the English word what I want to impress. So FTTH demand in Germany is there. So the demand is already there. We see that the take-up rates are a little bit lower than expected.
The funny thing is when you heard talk somebody I had a how companies have access to multi-dwelling units, that was the reason why the penetration might be lower for one company in Germany, because they don't have access to level four in that unit, and for that, they deploy in homes passed on FTTH, but penetration is lower without access. Funny enough, because we have this access. So that the good thing is we see the demand for higher bandwidth in our housings right now. You saw our tier mix was 50% and higher on 500 or 1 gig, so the demand is there. So story funded for the demand. Deployment pace.
We see actually, really, that the deployment pace on rural area is dimmed down, and we are on the same pace level in dense areas. A shift to urban areas is seen, which is good for us, because here we are playing, and we know also how to deploy level four, like Michael showed you in the video. Same focus: inflation has an impact on rollout costs. With our rollout costs, we are positioned best in class in Germany with our MDU approach, so really attractive also for that split. Housing association demand is still high, so the percentage when a tender or if talks with housing association, I would say 95% is: rollout fiber, we want to talk to you, Tele Columbus. Christian mentioned the pipeline of housing deals before.
And like I said, wholesale penetration or wholesale deals are more likely to sign, because otherwise, ISPs have to build by their own, and the whole environment plays into the hand that wholesale maybe with, or definitely with Tele Columbus, is not alternative to that. And this is better recognized when we put it in our NetCo company. Some by examples from Europe or Germany in the past, but you know it better what happened in the past on NetCo, ServCo splits. A lot of topics to do. The environment, the companies who are doing it are important, but we are willing to dive into that topic during the course of the year to see a NetCo, ServCo split for Tele Columbus as a clear alternative for the future.
This is important for us to mention it in the surrounding of the Capital Markets Day to you. Coming to my concluding remarks, and then open up the question and answer session. So what... We are, well, 1.5 hour, what we, what we told you in the last 90 minutes. We are transforming our network from HFC to FTTH. Contracts are signed today in the next 3 to 4 to 5 years. Deployment will take place in the following years. We have a two-sided approach. We will ramp up our penetration to market level. This is a growth opportunity of the company. We are delivering. I'm completely convinced to perform on that number.
On the DOCSIS 3.1 side, summertime is coming, so towels needs to be put onto the pool, so we will do it on the FTTH networks, definitely, because we have the relationship to the housing association, and everybody gives us a tick in the box. On level four, never will be there an overbuild on FTTH. Who has his towel placed in a housing association for level four build-out, will deliver the FTTH network for decades, for 50, 60 years into the future, and this is exactly what we want to deliver on. We will, by that, transform our business. TV service revenue will decline, will be overpaced and overachieved and overcompensated by IP growth, because the demand in Germany is there, the demand of our customers there. Our product positioning is right now best in class.
Connect tests show it, and, what, what Jochen mentioned before. A really, perfect work we have, we have did in the past, and we have to do in the future. So what, what our product and marketing team and our sales team are really doing is concentrating on the market, adjusting products on a daily, monthly, quarterly basis, react to competitors, and be first in the house. In that house, you may remember these houses, here, my competition takes place, and here I'm the service, the price, and the speed leader. And for that, penetration goes up, and later on, with a perfect base management, cross and upsell opportunities will be delivered as well.... So like I mentioned before, housing association, the whole building, the network, rollout cost, these are our competitive advantages of Tele Columbus in the German market. Management is changing the company.
We are changing the company in the right direction, and did it in 2023, we'll do it in 2024. Our strategic plan is clear, needs to be adjusted on a monthly, quarterly basis, of course, how the market changes. For that, exactly what I said, now is a window of opportunity also to look at the possibilities of a NetCo, ServCo split, and this is pillar number four of our strategic plan: to deliver on that, to analyze this, and then take a decision, discuss it, and then take a decision. Okay. This is the presentation right now, and we are now happy to take the Q&A session.
Idea is that, first of all, so my colleagues are in the background, and when I'm struggling with answering every question in detail, I will ask one of my colleagues or the team to step in and to come beside me here. But I would say I see or definitely I hear you, and I'm ready to take questions. Hopefully, when I take them, most of them, then question one, two, three, and help me if I forgot something in answering your questions, and please repeat this section for me. We can start if you are ready to.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call and you've joined us via Zoom, please use the Raise Hand icon towards the bottom of your screen. Alternatively, if you've joined us via the telephone, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Our first question today comes from Polo Tang, from UBS. Polo, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much for a very informative presentation. I have three questions.
Right now, I can't hear nothing. Nope.
Hello, can you hear me now? Can you hear me?
Give us one second to get an order here.
Okay. Can you hear me now? Hello?
Hi there, Polo. Please stand by.
Sure.
A short interruption. We don't hear the question.
Okay. Can you hear me now?
We can hear you, and we don't hear the question.
Can you hear me now?
Hi there, Polo. Please stand by.
Okay, sure. Hello, can you hear me now? Hello, can you hear me now? Hi, it's
Nah. No, I...
Okay.
Okay, so-
Okay.
Here we are. It was just that the speaker was out. Very easy to solve that, in that perfect technology company we are in. So Michael jumped in, and everything is fixed. So...
Shall I start again?
Start.
Okay, great. So, first of all, thank you very much for the very informative presentation. It's Polo Tang from UBS here. I just have three-
Mm-hmm.
Quick questions. The first question is on fiber build costs. So in slide 38, you highlighted that your fiber build cost per home is lower than your competitors at EUR 650. However, one thing which I don't understand is why your costs are lower than OXG. So isn't their situation very similar to yours? And if their footprint is significantly larger, should they not be getting benefits of scale? So can you maybe comment on, you know, what the differences may or may not be in terms of build costs between you and OXG? Second question is really just in terms of the barriers to entry. So on slide 15, you highlighted your concession agreements with the housing associations provided a high barrier to entry against overbuild and infrastructure competition.
But can you clarify what proportion of your footprint is protected through these long-term concession agreements? So I think you said 70% of your footprint with large housing associations, but are all of these homes covered by concession agreements or only a portion? And my final question is really just about Deutsche Telekom, because they signed an agreement with the, the GDW or the Association of Housing Associations last year, to make it easier for them to access MDUs. So are you seeing any signs of Deutsche Telekom being more active in terms of rolling out fiber into MDUs and housing associations? Thank you.
So, the 650, let's start me with your first question. And Michael, if you step in when I'm wrong on that side, is most linked to our ducts already laid out in the ground. So I mentioned also the figure that deploying fiber to a building block of a housing association means exactly also using our ducts. And then to jump from that point where the duct ends to the housing block in the dense areas is only by 79%, I think, is figure 1.9 meters.
I don't know if this was an exemption of the OXG numbers, because I think it's a mixture of build-out costs compared to the OXG, and these numbers we also see on the OXG numbers or information from Vodafone. So we can reform for our number, which is lower and linked to the ducts. The other point is that also with these costs, we do a lot of the wiring in-house, we do it with our own people, so it's also a mixture of how deploying the stuff. So doing it by our daughter company, RFC, where we have 200 craftsmen on our own, rolling this out in a perfect way, brings the costs down.
I would say DT, Deutsche and overbuild goes into the right or same direction. Overbuilding, there might be that a competitor is in the basement of a housing association with a connection point on fiber. It could be, but at the end, it is a level four operator who runs a level four, the FTTH network. And this is what I mentioned before: Every housing association, every association of a housing company, like the GdW as well, is saying to us, to everybody, "There will be no overbuild of a network in the level four. There might be small, there might be overbuild in the level three, but on the fiber network side, FTTH will be one network on the level four side." So in the housing association business.
All of our businesses are linked to a concession agreement with housing associations. So a concession agreement means that in many cases, we are allowed... First of all, we are the network operator in the level four. We are deploying the DOCSIS 3.1 network, or we are deploying the FTTH network. For that, the housing key account managers are signing these contracts, and then we are also servicing the network. In the future, we are also the partner for the housing association, who is managing the wholesale business, because we guarantee open access to that.
No, a lot of housing associations are stepping back and say, "With that, I don't want anything to do for the future, and please handle it for me." Coming to your telco question, the GdW, of course, there are several cooperation papers, I would call them, in the market, from Vodafone, from Tele Columbus, from Deutsche Telekom, who are signing with, also with the GdW right now. Deutsche signed a contract. To be honest, in some places, these are signed contracts because competitors already signed these contracts years ago in different ways. So for us, it's a sign, yeah, we are also here in the market, and we are aiming for housing association. Okay, they are entering the market since years.
They are in the market, of course, but we are in the market since decades and signing up the contracts, like Christian said, how we bring these contracts into life on, on fiber as well. It's a competitor in the market. Of course, it's a big competitor, but looking at our base, we are looking for fiberization of our base and hunting opportunities to grow, hopefully, in the future as well, that base with a different financing.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from James Ratzer, from New Street Research. James, feel free to unmute and ask your question.
Yes, good afternoon, Markus, and thank you again for the kind of presentation today. Very much appreciated. If possible, can I ask three questions as well, although I do have a much longer list. But yeah, so three questions I had, please, were: So at the time of the Q4 results, you announced that you had 50,000 customers who were actually taking your FTTH product. What I'd love to understand is how many of those 50,000 customers are brand new customers to Tele Columbus, and how many are existing customers who have consensually upgraded? And the second question follows on from that. And the reason why I was asking that first question is I'd just love to understand, you know, about the business plan you've set out today and at the Q3 results last year, is very focused on FTTH.
I think, you know, you haven't mentioned the phrase DOCSIS 4 at all. And I'd love to understand how potentially, kind of, you see the NPV of an FTTH business plan, which has high costs up front, versus maybe a DOCSIS 4 business plan, much lower upfront costs, what that does to your longer term retail share, especially as you say, any fiber build deployment, let's say, as Deutsche Telekom would have to be open access. So even if Deutsche Telekom did fiber in a housing association in the longer term, your PŸUR brand would still be able to get access to those customers. And then the third question I had, please, was just regarding the EBITDA number you gave for today, EUR 48 million, I think, is up 10% quarter-over-quarter in the Q1, sorry, 9%.
I think to hit the EUR 220 million guidance you've given for 2024, you'd need to do 15% EBITDA growth in the following three quarters. Can you just talk us through what gives you the confidence to see that acceleration, especially as we're likely to have some bulk TV losses coming? Thank you.
Okay. James, I'm happy to take your questions. So FTTH, to be honest, how many of new customers on the FTTH network? Because there's 50,000, based on the FTTH number of 100,000, is a mixture, like it is also shown before. It's a mixture out of new build homes. It's a mixture, mixture out of infrastructure projects, and it's a mixture out of overbuilding our DOCSIS 3.1 numbers. I would assume, I, we, we have to go back to these numbers, that these 50% penetration are mostly new customers.
Because when I'm looking in, that's a mixture out of these pillars, and in the last years, FTTH was more than on the infrastructure project than the new build, and now we are starting off overbuilding ourselves. So coming from this basis, the 50% is more in on that. The good thing is, and this then also leads to EBITDA growth, to your last question, is that the growth opportunity on IP is definitely there. We are below 30%, and this is not only, and you are exactly right, also, in your reports before. We have a two-step approach. We are concentrating on DOCSIS 3.1 in penetration rising.
Because coming from 25%, we need to, we have to, to break through that 30% penetration later on to that 35% penetration rate, and then to 40%. At the same time, Christian is signing housing contracts on FTTH. Michael is building them, and then we have a parallel network and transforming customers or signing new contracts on the fiber network. This is the strategy. But nevertheless, the penetration upside, and like you see, the portion of our network which remains on DOCSIS 3.1, is at, in 4 years, still 50%. So penetration rising in that topics on these points, is very important for us, and is linked to that.
To be honest, DOCSIS 4.0 or whatever, exactly, in the US, a proven concept in Germany, the market in that case is also driven by the housing association. So my first customer, I have to sell a contract, is the housing association, and in that case, the demand for upgrading to DOCSIS 4., the demand is for fiber. Like I said in my other chart, and Michael as well, the cake is now eaten or signed, I would say, in the next 4-5 years. So we are signing fiber contracts and not DOCSIS contracts. Doesn't mean that fiber is rolled out immediately. It will be rolled out over the years, but it is the complete drive in the market in Germany to fiber more, and more, and more, than to DOCSIS 4.0.
And in that case, we over jump DOCSIS 4.0 and migrate from DOCSIS to fiber, then to move from 3.1 to 4.0. Yeah? This is, I think, the answer to your second question. Third question, I think I refer to our Q1 result call, deeper to that on the EBITDA growth. We see the IP growth is taking place. We have several measures onto that, and yeah, stick to our forecast right now. And we'll deliver more detailed numbers on the Q calls coming next week, and then three months later. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Adeel Shafiqullah, from Sculptor Capital Management. Adeel, please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. It was wanted to get your more thoughts around the rationale for the NetCo and ServCo split, and specifically on any impact it has to the refinancing that you've already completed. Thank you.
The impact on the refinancing is we have the opportunity, together with our lender community, of course, to have these thoughts and these analyses. We will not do something in hectic or whatever. There is no reason for that, because we already finished that refinancing, and we analyze this together with our shareholders, and then, of course, together with our lender community, what step is the right one and what step we want to take here. And, for this, there is no pressure, so thoughts are free, and, have to based on really rationales, we want to achieve with that. And, I think this is the point where we are standing right now.
Understood. And with respect to accessing capital and optimizing the access to capital, the idea is that as of now, you have a fully funded business plan, and the idea is to basically optimize the cost of that capital rather than you would be needing more capital for the business plan. Is that, is that right?
This is right, but I also mentioned there are opportunities right in the market, and this is, our business plan right now is focused on transferring our current, current business into the fiber world. But there are growth opportunities, and in that case, we are, of course, a growth, opportunities in our current footprint, covered by our business plan. But when I want to go outside, I see an opportunity in Berlin to do more here. I then have to think not to do it somewhere else, but the question is: Could a NetCo-ServCo split help to do both when the growth perspective is there?
And this is what we want to want to see, because the good thing is there is a kid on the block right now, which is Tele Columbus, which gets questions: "Can you help us? Can we are in we are an old cable operator. Bulk migration doesn't fit so good into our concept. I'm old enough to sell my company," whatever. There are opportunities in the market, and with my financing right now, I'm a little bit, I can dance here, but not there. And this is also an opportunity we want to discuss.
Understood. Thank you. We look forward to hearing more from you.
The next question comes from Peter Jurik from Tresidor. Peter, please go ahead.
Hey, hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I'll just have a few. I guess the first one is, look, a little bit of a housekeeping question when it comes to the EUR 650 cost per homes passed. I, unfortunately, maybe this is down to me, but I keep getting a little confused. So is that EUR 650 million, EUR 650 per home passed, just the cost of the L3 connection? Or is that a cost that's inclusive of the L4? Simple question.
Including Level 4.
Okay. And so you're effectively saying the reason why you're able to achieve that is because your Level 4 is predominantly ducted already. Sorry, level-
The level three. The level three is predominantly ducted as... Yes, you're right. And yeah, and what-- Now, it's because your 650 homes passed is not wide as well, because when we speak about 650, it's homes connected. Because like you saw in the video, the ONT is in the building, or is it prepared that it could be very fast in the building. And the level three, which is included into the cost, has some different multiplier than to pass. But Michael, step in and help me on that side.
Let me structure, because it's a very important question. So first of all, 650 means level three and level four. The components here is more or less 50/50, 2/3, 1/3, and it implies all the active and passive cabling, plus all the IP connectivity you would need to install on the street cabinet. So really, it means the entire connection from street cabinet to Mr. Smith in the fourth floor, on the right-hand side. But the challenge here is that we avoid civil works, which is, you know, for competitors, this is the biggest cost item. Civil works typically is 90% of the cost. We can avoid this because it's no civil works.
What we do have is cabling on Level 4, which is again carried out by our craftsmen on, you know, in the staircase. There are new technologies which you can apply, which we tested, but more or less, it's Level 4, Level 3 cabling, active, passive materials, and some degree of civil works, as it is an average calculation. But EUR 650 is also for this year, we saw as a proven KPI, that this is the realistic picture on our existing footprint. Of course, it looks a little bit different if we do new build and, you know, entire new enablement of new housing associations.
And then just for the avoidance of doubt, so it excludes CPE, would be the-
Exclude CPE, yes. Yes.
Excludes.
It excludes CPE, it includes ONT.
The only sort of... I guess you must be making an implicit assumption of something like 50% penetration? On the Level 4 level.
I think it's less. It's 40%, I think it's,
Okay, fine.
Here I step in. It's a mixture then, of, out of the TC retail and the wholesale, which steps in over time, because wholesale is then also focused on the fiber footprint. I think, sorry, because we are also in the middle of... Again, in these numbers, I think what we presented here was a 45 and 15 split, so 45 TC retail and 15, wholesale to the end of that timing period of the business plan right now. Yeah.
I guess what I mean is, just for the avoidance of doubt, is 650 is not the average cost, because you won't be doing the last mile, sort of, going into everybody's home, right? So it's parts-
No, no, we are. We are. So I sign a contract with the housing association in Berlin, about 10,000 households. And then I have an average, when it's my housing association, I already did in the past, by DOCSIS 3.1, then I will homes connected by FTTH. I have the fiber in the streets in Berlin, going to that, to Charlottenburg in Berlin, where these housings, 10,000 are. I do the wiring in the level four, like you saw in the video, in every of these 10,000 flats, by an average cost of EUR 650.
Okay.
Level 3 and Level 4.
Okay.
Without CPE.
To give a little bit of dynamics, there is the ONT, you also saw this in the video, twist-on part, where the fiber terminates, plus the IP conversion happens. Our assumption is, at the moment, that's part of EUR 650. We are even discussing to, for example, just place a passive cap on that part, and send the customer once activating this twist-on ONT part, the active part. So this is even a process discussion we are having to reduce costs further. So what I'm saying here is, we are not at the end of the line. We are trying to optimize further when it comes to cost, materials, and so on. As I said, it can also be higher, it can be lower, it depends on the case, but it's an average calculation, including ONT, excluding CPE.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. In a similar vein, kind of a little bit of a clarification. When we think about your L3 network, you know, 4.8 million homes passed, 2.3 million homes two-way upgraded, connected. So how should I think about the proportion of L3 that is currently fiberized? Or rather, that needs to be fully upgraded from whatever it may be, to full fiber?
Good question. I think we are pretty strong on L3 fiberization. So we have a lot of fibers already today running into a sort of coax TV DOCSIS infrastructure, because we are terminating, in very often cases, the fiber line in a, in a larger sort of, MDU, right? So if you will, it's a sort of a FTTB sort of installation, or FTTC, but, I would say it's 2/3. Yeah, so 2/3 of the L3 is fiberized, and, one-third is still sort of on, on a, on a, coaxial infrastructure base.
Okay, perfect. And then, what... I had just two more questions on the TV business, actually. One is on page 28. You had the stats of 40%, over 40% of migration ratio. And I just wanted to better understand what this 40% is. Is it sort of you're expecting to get to 50, 60, by the time the move has to happen, and you've already done 40%? Or, like, I'm just trying to... I don't quite understand what the 40% refers to.
So, customer, on what page you are referring to?
Page 28. EUR 110,000 +40%.
Ah. Okay, let's go to page again. Let's wait. Ta-ta, where I have it. Let's go to page 24, please. And here, we are referring these 40% to the pillar of Q1 of these 110,000. So, it's a lot of 40% because, the page before, go to 23, please. Oh, so I can do it myself, sorry. Here, we have these 42% in bulk. And going to the next page is that right now, this is a snapshot of, I think, last week. We are in the position to say that in this cohort of 110,000 households we are transformed, we-- I think the actual number is 42%. We are by 42%. Next week, hopefully, we are by 44% or 43%, whatever.
We are jumping into these households, every month, again and again, with mailings, with housing associations, again, with door-to-door sales. Customers are coming into our shops, and so on, and so on. And this, we called penetration rising on that, and we—at the end, when the transformation process is ended, the migration process, which we are assuming end of this year, Q1 2025, we, we, estimate, migration of it from bulk into individual by between 50% and 60%.
Okay. So, the right way to read this graph is that in Q1, 2024, 110K households will be switched off from bulk, and you're working through that? The 110K is the switch off. Okay. So that's clear. And, the last question I'll then ask on TV is, you, it was at the end, you mentioned the business plan has an assumption of TV ARPU coming down a little bit. I mean, that, I guess that surprised me, 'cause I would have assumed that when you switch from bulk to individual, you'd probably have a little bit more of a premium uptake. So what's the underlying assumption? Are you just assuming that a lot of the bulk turn on to individual will be at the very basic TV level?
Or are you lowering prices to promote uptake, or what's kind of baked in?
It's a little bit a mixture of all. What we see right now in the competition in Germany is that the prices are on TV. This is also land grabbing of competitors in this migration phase. But right now, we see that the TV prices overall are, in Germany, going down, coming from our level, more a little bit down. And for that, we adapted that also in the business plan, or adjust, or put it like the competitors are doing as well. So we put it in that plan on a lower level.
At the assumption that you have going forward, I mean, do you, is it, are you making money on that assumption? Or is it more just, "Oh, I'll try to have somebody on triple play so that there's less churn?" 'Cause when we speak to a lot of other companies in Europe, you know, the media business oftentimes is sold for the cost of content. So I'm just wondering how it works for you.
I think it's more and more moving also into the bundle logic. Because a first approach into the household will be, in the future, more the IP product than the TV product. And this is what we just changing into our business. In former times, it was TV, now it's IP. And then bundling it with that, and that brings us these ARPU mixes.
So, is it, I guess, just for the avoidance of doubt, fair to assume that there's not huge gross margin on a go-forward basis?
Yeah. On the PŸUR TV side, it's a little bit lower than the margin is than on the basic TV side, higher, and the mixture out of that is than the margin we are seeing on the TV side. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you very much. I'll get in the queue.
We have some questions from the phone lines. We have a question from Stefan Binder from Palmerston Capital. Stefan, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me?
Very good, thanks.
Okay, perfect. Well, thanks for the presentation. I have basically three blocks of questions. Some of them are probably just some background. So if I look at slide number 31, which is basically the slide where you show how many homes you've connected and contracts won. I understand the business plan, you wanna basically upgrade 900,000 homes until 2028. It seems like you know, with your approvals and won, you're already at roughly... You're not too far away from 600,000, if my math is correct. What I'm curious on is, can you give us a little bit of guidance how that pipeline number will actually change over the next few years?
You know, not the actual fiber built, but at the end of 2028, because you mentioned the cake is gonna be sliced now. What is your expectations on how much of your 2.3 million homes you have actually secured?
Yeah. I will never speak against the German government, because the aim of the German government is to reach the fiberization of Germany to near 100% in 2030. From our company, I would doubt it, to be honest. Exactly, we are aiming to address left to address this 1.6 million here in the next 3-4 years. There are customers in this box who just don't want to change the running system and are happy to stay on DOCSIS, to be honest. But we are expecting to migrate, like I also showed on the slides before, on the gross profit slides. I would say it is 80%, maybe in the future will be 80%-90%, will be fiber-wise.
Contract signed with housing association, I would expect to reach that in. So we are now in 2024, 2028, 2029. So something we will end this process between 2028 and 2030, 2030, I would say. And then the build-out contracts won and open to build, means open to build, there are numbers in which will be built in 2028, 2029. So that, these numbers of 600,000 you mentioned right now, is not linked that these numbers are exactly these 900,000, which we will build until 2028 or, or so on. So there will be also in that number of 1,600,000 customers who are coming up next year, the year after, to be built in fiber. So it's a mixture out of that.
Okay. So you said basically you sign contracts now, where the build is kind of like linked to the renovation of the housing association, which is coming in the next few years. What I'm curious is, out of your 2.3 million lines, I mean, your competition also speaks to the same housing association to the same degree, or to some degree, I guess. Out of your 2.3 million lines, has any of your competitors signed up a housing association, like, going forward, like in 3-4 years? Have you basically lost any of these, your future tenders against your competition at this stage?
Of course, in that business, you win and you lose customers. To say no would be a lie, and of course, we lost also contracts out of it. But we just spoke about a contract we recently was last year, one migrated to fiber and now have tremendous penetration upsides out of it. Christian just mentioned it this morning. That was 1,800 households, for example. And this is a moving target. And this is what I mentioned, that we were able in the last year to stabilize these Homes Connected number. And this is important because the fluctuation isn't so high, so you really not lose 200-400,000 and gain 400,000.
It is, you lose here 40,000, you gain 50,000, and for this, it's near to be stable. But that happened, of course, yes.
You know, I mean, I understand. Obviously, you guys are a little bit more capital constrained than your competition, I guess, when it comes to planning your CapEx budget. I guess it is fair to assume you're not gonna keep all your 2.3 million lines in the next 10 years. You're gonna build some of yourself and some of them, your competition will come in. I'm just trying to get a bit of a feeling, you know, where this number is gonna shake out in the midterm.
Now, in our business plan, our assumption is that we are in, for the future, on a stable level on that. So this number is our expectation is that this number will not drop below 2 million or whatever. So that we are quite stable on that number. Because like I said, and this is also linked to really that close relationship. So 750 customers are responsible for 70% of our footprint. So here we are really close to our customers. And our, like Christian said, our hidden champion in our business is the Housing Association, which promotes us when we are in and selling our product. This brings a boundary or a relationship to the Housing Association, which is more than a usual relationship, I would say. I would name it.
And this is special, and to be honest, this is also the topic why it was so hard in the past, and to be honest, also why now, for entering into that business of new competitors, even for Deutsche, on knocking on the door. To be honest, yes, they gain customers, but not every customer says: "Oh, wonderful! I love Deutsche. Come in and find out." No, that isn't the topic. And this is what also the reflection or the feedback we get from our customers.
Okay. Then I have another question. I'm really curious how the bulk migration of it actually works. So obviously, I understand you sell free TV in a convenient way for your customers, but this TV signal, they can also get via internet TV or satellite. So do you actually switch off the customer, and the customer loses the existing TV access, and then you try to win him back over the next six months? Or do you let him, leave him on the signal, and then you kind of, like, really start marketing it? Well, we're gonna switch you off if you're not gonna sign up. How does it work, actually?
So right now, the customer, I don't know if I get your question right by free TV. Right now, the customer has to pay for that TV via his auxiliary costs, and this is not possible anymore, beginning of first of July. So the process right now is: the selling process or the migration process, that the housing association key account goes to the housing association and says, "We have to have a concept, and here's our concept, how we migrate you, because you decided to switch from bulk to single contracts. For that, in many cases, we signed new contracts, we signed DOCSIS contracts, but we also signed fiber contracts. And in that case, here's our migration concept." First of all, 5-6 months before the migration date, a letter from the housing association goes out to the customer.
In some cases, even with a contract from us, and saying: "Guess what? There is a change, but there must be no change. Just sign here, bring the contract to the office of the housing association, which is there and there, or bring it to the Tele Columbus retail store or whatever, or send it to that address." And this is our first wave of getting customers from bulk to TV. A second mailing goes out, a third mailing goes out, either with or without the housing association. Then door-to-door retail, online, linkage to housing association web pages, and so on, steps in. We have sessions where people are sitting in the offices of housing association. A mailing goes out. Here's a question-and-answer session with our sales guys, come in and they answer your questions. Here, you can sign a contract.
By that, there is more than getting TV from Tele Columbus; it's also internet you can get... And this is step one: in front of the penetr- in front of migration date X. And this is what you saw in our pages by 40%, 20%, 30%. Then the final date comes, and then again, door-to-door goes in, and all our salesmen after that comes in and say, "Guess what, dear customer? The migration was done. You have now to sign." And then together with technicians, we are able to block the single flat via our star network, and we're also doing a disconnecting of customers. Of course, that is a longer process and will-
Ah.
This is why I'm saying the reshaping or the remarketing takes longer, then also will uplift penetration again.
That was actually my question. When the migration day comes, you do not switch off your customers, which I think is absolutely the right thing, because once you switch off the customer and he finds an alternative solution to get the TV signal, like satellite or internet, you will never get him back. So you leave him on, just to confirm, you leave him on for a certain amount of period post the migration date, even if he doesn't have an individual contract, and only-
Exactly.
Once you completely run out of patience, I guess you would switch him off ultimately.
Exactly. Exactly.
Okay.
And have in mind-
Thank you.
It's really in June, it's a European Championship. July, August is Olympic Games. That would be also... Yeah, that might help us as well. Somebody is saying, "I won't change a running system," during the course of summer. It helps us also with saying to, "Guess what? When you are not signing, we have to block you." That-
So you're sending them whether we're gonna disconnect you here and escalate it, and then hope basically that-
Exactly.
Okay, understand. Uh, thank you. That, that's very clear now. I wasn't quite sure because I thought, you know, once you disconnect, you can never get him back. But okay, you leave him on, which is smart. And then last question, then I get off the line. Your CapEx split. I'd be curious if you can split up your CapEx a little bit into what, what's for new fiber line, what's for customer premise equipment, and what is for like general CapEx, kind of overhead, or also general maintenance of your old coax lines. If you could give me a little bit more clarity, maybe that's more question for Nicolai, but you know, that would be helpful.
Yeah. Please provide your question to the investor relations team or to the link we will provide, and we'll come back to you on that detailed slice of CapEx and so on.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. More than welcome.
The next question comes from Thomas Marino, from Bain Capital. Thomas, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for, for the presentation. I had three from my side to start. So you mentioned that of the 25K net IP adds in Q4, that special projects had a big impact on that. I just wanted to understand what you mean by this, and if this 25 net adds was not related to any non-recurring sort of benefits. And then in relation to that, what is the sort of quarterly net adds figure on the IP side that you are baking into your 2024 guidance? So that's the first question, and, and maybe I can, I can ask the two others once we've addressed this one.
So, for me, I really did a big jump when I saw that we performed on the 25 number in Q4. The good thing is, what I said before, our business is project-driven business. So for us, it was very important with our new team to ramp up sales, point of sales. And point of sales is a retail store, it is a contact in a call center, it's a door-to-door man or woman who is knocking on the door. And for me, it was the biggest question: Are we able to ramp up this multi-channel approach on the consumer side? And we performed on that. Jochen's teams performed on that.
For that, 25 was a number needed because we are on the 20-ish level for Q on a Q&Q level for performance in 2024. And you saw the number, which was 15 net adds on the side in Q1. This is a little bit lower what we want to see, but the good thing is, because of the bundle mix I mentioned before, we have the gap between 25 and these 15 already linked to the bundle contracts, which will then kick in by activating the TV customer by the bulk migration. So we have to perform for the future year and years on that 20 level and ramping up, like Jochen is saying, onto that level, and we did in Q4. Project-driven is because we are.
Just for the team here, projector is going into the stand, my motor is, he's saying. Sorry. The relationship to the housing association is that we are doing the project on a day-to-day business. So this is what we are. This is a hidden champion with the housing industry, key account managers, who are bringing the projects to Jochen's team, that they can perform on that level.
So-
It was question number one, and you had some other-
Yeah, so in relation to that question, so are you comfortable that with 20,000 net adds per quarter on the IP side, you can deliver your 2024 guidance?
Yes.
Okay. The next question is in terms of the fiber build impact that you're showing on slide 35. I didn't quite understand that. So you mentioned particularly the housing overbuild part. So this shows that whenever you build fiber, you get up to a 28% penetration after 24 months versus current penetration on DOCSIS around 25%. So that seems like a relatively small uplift for the CapEx spend that you're doing. So I just wanted to understand if I'm reading that correctly, or if there's anything else, if maybe you can discuss other potential benefits you're seeing there in terms of ARPU benefit, or how should we think about the benefit of that overbuild? Because that headline number you're showing of 28% doesn't look particularly attractive.
The penetration rate which you have in mind is an overall penetration rate across the whole footprint. What we picked out here is that in that housing association, we don't have that high penetration rate. It was only 13% penetration in that housing association. After overbuilding with fiber, in a very short period of time, by 21 months, we went up from 13% to 28%. So this is a rise of 15 percentage points in that class, coming from 13 and not from, like you said, 25%-28%. Yeah?
Got it.
This is what we are saying that-
Okay.
Yeah. This is what we want to show.
That's clear, that's clear. Thanks. And, okay, and then maybe switching to the, to the next one. On slide 31, you're showing us this new KPI, which is very helpful, on sort of breaking down the housing association homes passed, which you've got kind of locked in. So very clear in terms of waiting to build. I just wanted to understand what customers waiting for approval and internal planning and approval means, in terms of how close are you to guarantee that you are gonna be the one to build the fiber on those, in those two other buckets?
I would say we put here, I think we are working in our CIM systems with a certain portion of what is your assumption, my beloved key account manager, that we get a tick in the box of the customer. And internal planning and approval process, to be honest, this is exactly... Of course, one of these 135 households, there will be also a loss of the contract because somebody else will get it. It could be. But on the one hand side, out of the left to address, and out of new build, and out of new prospects, we will fill up that pipeline. And this is to break that down, this is our footprint. The 2.362 is our footprint.
Nevertheless, there is also another footprint, a path, and how it's called, prospects or potential customers who we want to gain to our network. And this is just the pipeline or the waterfall for homes connected. There is, of course, other in the systems that we are saying: Here's a customer which right now is not our customer, but is also in the internal planning and approval process. And these numbers are just linked to homes connected. There are several others which add to that number, and for that, we will saying that we are compensating if we lose also a customer, which is daily business, gaining and losing some of these customers.
The big points you have to make, of course, and it's harder to when you lose a big chunk or a big Housing Association, the big points you have to make, like always in soccer or in other sports.
Oh, okay. So just to make sure I understand, the customers waiting for approval bucket and the internal planning and approval bucket, those can still be lost to competitors because they're currently under tender-
Yes.
or there's some discussion going on. Yeah, that's correct?
Yeah. Yeah, that's correct.
Okay. The 1.6 million bar, which is at the right end, left to address, where should that be at the end of 2024, roughly?
I would say to be 1... I don't know, to be honest. 1.3, whatever, we are now addressing here. Something like that, I would say. Yeah.
Okay, perfect. And then just final one-
Will definitely not be below the 1 million, if you, so, we have to... Yeah.
... Okay. And, and just a final one. On your 24 guidance, can you confirm that that remains unchanged versus what you discussed during the Q4 call a couple of weeks ago?
We are just now also in our forecast process, and we'll comment on that on the results call next week.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Vivek Khanna from Deutsche Bank. Vivek, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Can you hear me okay?
Yeah, perfect.
Okay. Oh, wonderful. Listen, just a couple of things, if I may. Two very easy ones, and then a couple more, a little bit more complicated. I guess the first simple one is on the TV ARPU migration from bulk to individual. I just want to confirm, are you saying that the, you know, perceived potential impact of, you know, increasing it from EUR 6-7 to EUR 9 is no longer possible due to the competitive environment?
Yeah. We see lower ARPU's right now coming in. Yes.
Okay, amazing. Thank you for that. Very much appreciated. The second thing is, when we go to slide, I think it was 26... Oh, sorry, 24 when we look at the fiber migration over time, or rather, you know, when you talk about as of today, like in Q4, 20% of the, so this is sorry, slide 24. So in Q3 2024, when 665 are expected to migrate, as of today, 20% have already been converted. Is that the correct read of that slide?
Yes. Completely correct.
Okay, amazing. Perfect. So if you could, ideally, if we can actually track that over time, so we can see how that 20% evolves as we get closer and closer and past the period, would be amazing. Because we can see how, as you've highlighted, it takes time to migrate. So if we can track it, that would be amazing. So from a data point perspective, that's something we'd like to see, going forward, if possible.
Okay. Mm-hmm.
And then two other very quick things. The first one is with regards to in-house wiring opportunity. I mean, obviously, even if competitors have access, have fiber to the building or close to the building, you will have, in all those areas which you've built the network, a sort of monopoly within the in-house wiring. What sort of wholesale revenue do you think you can achieve on that in-house wiring wholesale opportunity?
And related to that, when we talk about the NetCo ServCo split, which clearly is, it could be very value accretive and constructive from a capital raise perspective, I just want to get a little sense from a timing perspective, because considering you've only got, call it, you know, 100,000 FTTH lines, I suspect that that's gonna take a little bit longer to materialize. Or is there a wholesale opportunity on DOCSIS at present? Which I know you do have partners with Telefónica Deutschland, but I'm just wondering whether that has actually led to any sort of real commercial momentum. Thank you very much.
Yeah. I think the mixture, when we are saying the wholesale business is developing around the EUR 40 million, which we want to achieve in that direction, is exactly a mixture out of that, what you are addressing. So, first of all, it's a bitstream access model, and you are completely right. Telefónica is on the DOCSIS network, and, a lot of the other participants, which we are now in talks, are focusing on the, on the fiber networks. So, fiber deployment is important for us to bring these numbers up. And, service revenues are, yeah, on the B2B we also have to think about, so we have more opportunities, so we have the bitstream access. We are laying out four networks into...
We are laying out four networks into four fiber pipe lines into every building. So there might be also an opportunity to monetize one of these lines as well, as an opportunity on the wholesale side, and it will be a mixture out of that. And and prices, we are still in discussions, and the ARPU, I also think, is in our boxes, but, don't want to, to bring that here. I think the wholesale ARPU, I have to, we come back later on the whole- wholesale ARPU mix, if you ask that question again, to, to the Investor Relations, on that side, that would be... That would be great.
Fair enough. Will do. And on the NetCo-
Sorry, now I can't hear you anymore.
Sorry, and the last question was on the NetCo timing.
The timing. Now I get you. Yeah, we are in the middle of the process to speak about the timing. Right now, not possible. I would say, for me, the earlier the better, but, we will inform and update you what the timing and the analysis brings. So now saying a date, no. There, there will-- is still ongoing discussions with our shareholders, also with the lender community then, and then there might be also a time for timing, declarations. Not yet.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Sarvaj Sethi from HPS. Sarvaj, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, and thanks for the presentation. So just a high-level question. You know, right now you've got a fully funded business plan. If the growth does not materialize as planned, but the CapEx levels continue, then there could be another liquidity issue in the future. So are the shareholders willing to put in further equity to support the business again in the future? And have you had that direct discussion with them?
Of course, we have that discussion, but nevertheless, we are believing in our business plan. So, now assuming that we can't deliver on that, and then we can't deliver on our fiber rollout, this is not the way we are doing our business right now. But nevertheless, there is a business case in the background. We are just checking every month when our data is there, and for that is also exactly what we are seeing by the deployment CapEx. We can manage together with the housing associations on that level in a good shape.
So for that, I would say, I would stick to our plan and right now, getting EUR 300 million, this is like the child goes and said, "I get a big ice cake," and now I want, what is it? With a big next ice cake. Let's focus on the EUR 300 million, what we can do with that. And then, together with the idea of NetCo, ServCo, we are in the middle of the discussion, how we can work with this, CapEx facilities. And this is why we are looking and exactly what we are saying, it is not more we can't deliver. It is more we can maybe deliver more, and how we can address then CapEx deployment, and for that, the NetCo/ServCo split is there.
For that, this discussion with our shareholders is an interesting one.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Yash Bhatt from Apollo. Yash, please go ahead.
Hello?
We can't hear you. Now I hear you. Okay, Yash. Okay.
Hey, sorry, I think my microphone might have some problems, but, I'll try and I'll keep this succinct. It would be helpful, actually, in the first instance, just to understand the level four wholesale rate, because we understand from competitors that the wholesale rate could only be about sort of maybe EUR 5 or so per month. Is that a number that sounds reasonable to you? I have more questions, but I'll go one by one.
No, it sounds... It didn't sound reasonable, to be honest. It's out of my perspective, too low.
Got it. Understood. In your, in your business plan, your penetration for PŸUR, I think you have it at sort of 47%, and then you've got some wholesale business of a further 9%. My question is, why, why in your business plan do you not assume to win wholesale business from Deutsche Telekom or Vodafone? Or rather, what are the obstacles to you guys procuring wholesale business from them if you have the single Level 4 fiber network?
I think on the what I right now, and this, when we come in and looked at the business case, I can drive right now the retail business, and this is what we did with the team of from Jochen. And on the wholesale side, knowing where this company comes from, their wholesale ideas in the past, we are a little bit less aggressive on that side. We are open to discussions and actually in discussions with all these what is shown on the graph. I wouldn't assume that a Vodafone or a Deutsche is never seen on our network in the future.
So open to discuss that with them and actually doing, and this is just be more aggressive on what you can change and be a little bit conservative what is depending on third parties, and this is what we did by planning that.
Sure. Just the question, I guess, the reason why I asked the question is on slide 46, you've highlighted three examples of NetCo. I think Telenet, TDC and Telecom Italia, and I think all three of those networks, I think what they have in common is they had already pretty successful wholesale businesses. Well, I guess you could debate about the veracity of the success, but they also had essentially the national incumbent as the anchor tenant. And I think in this situation, for Tele Columbus, you're obviously not a former incumbent, and you also have a DOCSIS network, which generally tends to be difficult to procure wholesale business.
I was wondering if this is a factor at all with the NetCo financing, and is this something that investors raise as a question, as you guys try to procure a NetCo deal? And in addition to that, were you to procure NetCo financing, do you expect the use of proceeds to be essentially used for the fiber CapEx? Or do you expect to repay some of the essentially quite expensive PIK notes that you have post the refinancing? Thank you.
Yeah. I think on that, for us, the wholesale upside is in the NetCo, exactly what you are addressing. And for that, you are completely right to say, okay, what is with Deutsche? What is with Vodafone in the German market? And where it ends up in the refinancing process, we are just in the beginning. So for me, it's too early stage to say how to do that and how to leverage this or that. And for that, yeah, it's in too early stage to have an opinion exactly on that.
Just last question then from me. On, on the fiber upgrades, so when you do an upgrade, how many, how many years does your concession agreement get extended? Or, how do, how does it work? Do you, do you manage the fiber network on the level four into perpetuity at that point? And I guess the, the follow-on question then is: Do you see where Deutsche Telekom builds the level four for the fiber? Do they have a similar kind of perpetual agreement, or, or how does that work? Thank you.
First of all, the concession agreements we are signing are, I would say, when we are speaking about fiber, it is always more than 10. So I think in the presentation, it's mentioned that we are between 8 and 15 years. When we are speaking about fiber, it's tending to that 15 years, to be honest. We already saw a longer one. And it's exactly what you are saying. If we are the operator, so never say never, but you will be the operator in that building who is doing the fiber network, because you are doing then these PŸUR retail and then wholesale on that business. And like in the past, it is exactly that model that we own, after that 16 years, then additional one comes, the additional one comes, and the additional one comes.
My expectation is exactly, not knowing what others have in their clauses, but nevertheless, who will own the FTTH network will do it, yeah, the next 50, 60, 70 years.
Okay. Thanks very much for your time. Thank you.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up from Peter Jurik from Tresidor. Peter, please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for allowing me back in the queue. I actually wanted to follow up on a question of an earlier caller, and this was... Let me just get the right slide. This was on the slide with the penetration of fiber, so slide 35, with the housing overbuilt. And you said in this case, you selected a particular housing association where the starting point was 13%. I guess I would be interested to understand is, you know, what are the specifics of this example? Because 13% seems low. It's certainly lower than the average on your network.
Is it because, I mean, it was maybe the geographic or the demographic location that it was, let's say, a poor part of Germany, and therefore, penetration of the internet was lower in general, or was it that in this particular housing association, your competitors were being very aggressive? You know, I'm wondering, how good of a read across is this for other examples of overbuild? Should we be thinking of a higher penetration increase, so on and so forth?
Mm-hmm. So to really be clear on that side, and this is shown on the left side. When you look at TC retail, the, the graph here, now is our screen here, that blue one here. This is not market standard. So that 13% is taken out of, I would say, it's, it could be Munich or whatever, I don't know. It is not market standard, so there was no consumer sales in that company. And the good thing is, and for that, my belief in that we will hit the benchmark line. I... In that market since 25 years or longer, this benchmark, I know this is normal. This is what we have to achieve. This is what we can achieve.
And the good thing is, take one with 14%, and you will see, with 40-24%, and you will see that rising. So, in my former world, getting a contract, to be honest, from Tele Columbus, was always a good deal because we jumped to 40% after a certain time, and the business case was, wow! And this is what we are doing again, with teammates who did it in the past. And this is what we are aiming for, to bring the penetration to the benchmark. And the good thing is, now you can play also in fiber networks, but you also play in DOCSIS 3.1 HFC networks. Those networks are wonderful, competitive networks in our footprint. So against VDSL, and this is how I read these pages.
It is easy in a new build, to be honest, this 85% is not rocket science, because in a new build, there is a fiber network, and the penetration depends on how people are moving into that building. That's it. So what we are now also opening up is a new build sector in our housing association business, because these cases are flying right from the beginning. Infrastructure, good, but hard, hard to work in, but 66%, not a bad job, and then overbuilding is at the core of our business. And this is what we have to have in our DNA to perform on these benchmark levels. This is the scaling.
So, perhaps, a way to ask it is, you would kind of guide us to focus on the 15% increase rather than the absolutes? 'Cause I was just trying to understand-
Yeah.
if it was
Yes.
Okay, bye. Perfect.
Yeah.
And another-
For me, the fiber rollout is again an accelerator for the customers. Our customer arguments are: with fiber under the front of the car, it is just move on. The penetration rates, DOCSIS 3.1 gives us a lift. Fiber gives us a higher lift. A lift will come anyway. This is my complete picture of that company.
Okay. And there's one more follow-up I would have versus another caller, and this is around the wholesale business. And you're kind of saying, you know, you're being conservative because that's not in your control. But what I view as under your control is ultimately developing a wholesale platform and a system that allows people to plug in. So could you give us a little bit of an update on that? 'Cause I seem to remember that what you developed for Telefónica, I guess, or maybe it was 1&1, was very bespoke, and it wasn't openable to others. Maybe I'm wrong there, but that's a recollection. So where are you on the stage of creating an easy-to-use wholesale platform for fiber for your peers to use?
Ready to deliver that platform end of this year, next year, so 2024, 2025. This is what, when I speak about bringing partners onto that platform, is then only exactly what you are saying. We are building a multi-user platform, and which is standard in the German market. Our idea is then to have a project-by-project base. Then you have to have the connections to Vodafone, to Deutsche, to 1&1, and to Freenet or whatever is on our list, and this is then the work to do on that standardized platform.
But, yes, we are in the middle of the process of implementing, of building up that platform in parallel, aiming for, in that case, I'm really pushing it forward, but I don't know, something between end of 2024 or 2025, beginning of 2025.
And that would be focused predominantly, purely on fiber, I imagine?
Exactly.
Okay.
Because this is what we also get out of the market. Exactly.
Okay. And the very last question I then have, and I'll jump back in, is when you're talking about the ServCo, NetCo structure transaction, I mean, a question I would have is, could you remind us what kind of flexibility you have to do that, in your current documentation with the A&E? Or, you know, you say when there will have to be discussions with lenders, et cetera, I guess it would be to potentially renegotiate to do things, get consents, or are you actually allowed to do this already?
We are actually allowed to do that. So Nico, please step in and give precise information, but this is,
I think from a contractual standpoint, that we are allowed to do it, but the question, the current covenant is what happens with the proceeds, if any proceeds are made. They have to be used to pay back some of the notes, and that is something that we have to arrange. But besides that, we are in a position of doing it, yes.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much for all the answers.
Thank you. Just-
Next question.
The time, I would say it could. I think we are four minutes left, yeah? Wonderful. So, just to, I don't know how many people are in the queue. Yeah. Next question. Thank you.
Next question comes from Mark Chapman. Mark, please go ahead.
Hi, thanks very much for taking my question, and thanks for all the information. I have two, the first is just a quick clarification on your answer on the level four, wholesale rate. You mentioned that EUR 5 was too low. Is that not a regulated price, if it's going to be, essentially a monopoly? Could you maybe shed a bit more color on that? And then the second question is just on your B2B strategy. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on what kind of B2B customers you, you're targeting? Is this mostly home workers, or are these adjacent offices to your footprint? Sort of, what is the kind of the nature of the B2B opportunity? Thank you.
Yeah, happy to do that. So there is no price regulation on fiber in the wholesale business. There will be no one. This is what we get from the BNetzA right now. This is to the pricing, and I would like to leave it by that. On the B2B side, we have several pillars on our B2B side. So we are running data centers in Leipzig, where we also have one of these. So it's a DE-CIX, one of these node points for internet linkage, which is very important for our customers. And we are here we have Telefónica and CGI are in talks with us. We are by our own in our data center here, so this is the data center business.
Then, we have also, this is linked to the housing association business. We are building in that unit, special monitors, which we are selling into the floors of the housing association. In former times, you find a poster here, now you can find really a flat screen, who gives you information to that. And building out that business, not only to housing association, building it out to schools, to public facilities. I think in Halle and in Leipzig, we are talking with the city here to bring that also on the ground. And on the normal B2B side. Oh, no. Other point, very important for us, is the mobile backhaul business, which gives us the opportunity to roll out fiber, to build.
So this is fiber to the tower building, where we give internet connections and fiber rollouts for Telefónica, for 1&1, or Vodafone, and so on. The good thing is that these fiber lines are our lines afterward or during the process. We use them for rolling out, to bring the tower, the mobile tower, for example. But we also can use them, these networks, and this is linked with the picture from Michael, to that One Net perspective, also for our rollout strategy in Leipzig, in Halle, and in several other cities, to have a better portion and lower even on that side our rollout costs for developing fiber. And the last point is exactly what you mentioned.
Near to our fiber networks are normal B2B customers. These are the so-called SOHO customers, but we also have big customers on these networks, where we have different or tailored solutions for them.
Okay. Thank you very much, and that's very helpful.
Final question today, the follow-up from James Ratzer. James, please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. I'm going to take the follow-up question. So just last single question, please, from me, is just around the equity shareholders that you have. I think the follow-on equity placing that we saw back in November 2022 was done at the same price as the initial takeover, at EUR 3.25 per share. Could you say, is the current EUR 300 million equity injection also being done at the same equity price of EUR 3.25 per share? And what's your expectation, please, on whether United Internet are likely to participate? Thank you.
Mm-hmm. So the price is lower, and I don't participate on any speculation on what United Internet is doing in the next weeks. So let's wait and see. And I'm convinced of our business plan. I'm convinced of Tele Columbus, of our story and that company, and first of all, of our employees and teams who are working here to deliver on that plan. And for this, thanks, David, James, to give me that final comment to your question, because this is really what I'm believing in that story. And what United Internet is doing is dependent on their situation right now, and we will see how they will decide. Thank you. Okay, then I would say we are really exactly on time.
We planned to be on one half, one and a half hour for presentation, one and a half for questions. I think, that was just what we planned. I would say, yeah, hear you next week again, when we presenting our Q1 results, and, in the other results call. Thank you for, for that great, session for us, to answer all your questions. Thank you, and have a nice day and rest week.
This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.