Vodafone has agreed to acquire Liberty Global’s operations in Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania for an enterprise value of €18.4 billion.

The four businesses represent approximately 28 per cent of the cable group’s consolidated 2017 operating cash flow, which does not include its 50 per cent share from the VodafoneZiggo joint venture in the Netherlands.

More than 189,000 more households in 194 German cities and communities are now able to connect to the internet at speeds of up to 100Mb/s (with a minimum of 50Mb/s) for downloads and of 40Mb/s for uploads, following a network expansion from operator, Deutsche Telekom.

The cities benefiting include Paderborn, with 13,500 households, Hagen, with 7,800, Bad Pyrmont with 6,700, Leonberg with 6,000, and Wolmirstedt with another 4,500 households. The aims to provide as many people as possible – spanning both cities and rural areas – with fast internet.

Deutsche Telekom and utility company EWE plan to set up a network sharing joint venture that will spend €2 million to connect more than one million private households directly with optical fibre – and have signed a declaration of intent to that end.

Calling it “a major step toward the gigabit society in Germany”, the pair are planning to expand their fibre-optic networks in Germany's northwest region, and directly connect households to it using FTTB and FTTH. If the venture receives regulatory approval, operations scheduled to begin in mid-2018.