Telefonica and Vodafone already had recourse to the courts just before Christmas, and in January Deutsche Telekom joined them. The subject of the dispute is the conditions set out by the Federal Network Agency for the allocation of 5G frequencies, which are to be auctioned off this spring. The development conditions are unreasonable, disproportionate and unrealistic from a technical point of view, a spokesperson for Telekom told the “Die Welt” newspaper .

One of the main areas of complaint is the obligation on companies to open up their own networks to their competitors. If the operators are unable to reach an agreement, the Federal Network Agency will step in as the arbitrator. The operators see in this a bias in favor of those market participants who do not want to invest in the infrastructure themselves.

The auction of the frequencies will not be delayed because of the pending legal action, however.