📋 Tender Overview
The Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs, Hubert Aiwanger, draws a positive interim conclusion on the expansion of mobile communications in the Free State. Since 2019, LTE coverage of households has increased from 96.8 to 99.8 percent. Coverage in the area has improved from 88.4 to 96.1 percent. With 5G coverage of 97.5 percent of households and 89.2 percent in the area, Bavaria is also doing very well, Aiwanger is convinced: "Our close cooperation with the network operators is paying off. Between 2020 and 2023 alone, 25,000 radio transmitters were newly installed or expanded. This expansion has massively improved mobile communications coverage in the Free State and thus also the quality of life of the citizens."
Aiwanger underlines the importance of the Bavarian mobile phone funding program: "Our program is a success story. The market research alone has ensured that the network operators are building or expanding almost 500 new mast locations. Over a quarter of these have already been implemented. By the end of the year, around 30 additional masts from the actual funding program are to be erected. Thanks to our funding, a total of around 70 Bavarian municipalities will receive a new mobile phone mast. This means that annoying dead spots in rural areas in particular can finally be closed."
Overview of the funding program:
72 municipalities have received a funding decision
51 municipalities have started the tender process
Building permit applications were submitted for 41 projects
Building permits were granted in 27 municipalities
12 subsidized radio masts have already been erected
The mobile communications center at the government of Upper Palatinate will continue to support municipalities in implementing the funding program until at least 2026. In contrast, the federal government wants to dissolve the federal mobile communications infrastructure company (MIG) as early as the end of 2025. Aiwanger comments: "All federal states in the Bundesrat have spoken out in favor of the federal government continuing the MIG. Even though only one federally funded mast has been built in Bavaria so far, the Berlin program is currently gaining momentum. The federal and state programs complement each other perfectly. It is therefore important that the MIG also continues to drive network expansion in Bavaria. An end to the federal program would be the wrong signal for network expansion in rural areas."
