Fast internet is not only available with fiber optics. The cable access that often already exists can also get you online quickly. Households benefit immediately from an invisible upgrade.
Many households in Germany are still waiting for fiber optic expansion. And the transition has been underway for a long time not always smooth. You have to dig anyway, which is often associated with longer waiting times and contractual hassles.
What is often overlooked is that fiber optic technology is technically top-notch, but it is also not the only option for fast internet, and you should at least keep that in mind.
In many houses there is already an option for fast internet with TV cable connections and GBit connections can usually also be booked. Vodafone claims to have already reached 30 million households in Germany. And the technology behind it doesn’t stand still either: this is what we report currently Vodafonethat the existing infrastructure can be optimized by dividing network areas into smaller areas.
This so-called segmentation means more capacity and faster data rates are available directly at the connection, without the need for classic fiber optic installations on site.
Segmentation in the background instead of construction work in the garden
According to Vodafone, 159 segmentation projects were implemented in over 100 cities and municipalities in December alone, including larger measures in Nuremberg, Wuppertal and Düsseldorf.
In the entire year 2025, Vodafone’s technology experts say they implemented 2,500 modernization measures for 620,000 households.
The idea behind it: Households have to share the speed on a common TV cable line (shared medium). Fewer households are now connected to a network section per segment, which increases the available bandwidth for each individual connection. What happens in the background:
- Congested network areas are divided into smaller clusters.
- Existing amplifier points will be modernized and additional fiber optic nodes will be built.
- These new nodes are connected via fiber optics, so the proportion of fiber optics in the network increases with each segmentation
The fiber ends at the junction on the sidewalk. There the optical signal is converted into an electrical one and fed into the house via the existing coaxial cable using the DOCSIS 3.1 standard. Front gardens, cellars and house walls remain untouched, and construction work on the building is no longer necessary.
DOCSIS 3.1 uses the frequency spectrum much more efficiently than its predecessors and will potentially enable several gigabits of downloads. Vodafone speaks of up to 7 GBit/s and up to 1 GBit/s in uploads with high-split technology.
In technical jargon, the Vodafone network is also called an HFC network, Hybrid Fiber Coax, i.e. a mixed network with fiber optic and coax cables. Segmentation increases the proportion of fiber optics in the HFC network because additional nodes are connected via fiber optics.
Disadvantage of slow upload
But what is also true: The biggest shortcoming of classic cable connections remains the comparatively slow upload. In practice, only around 50 Mbit/s is standard here, even with high download speeds.
However, Vodafone is already working on improvements: The so-called high split expansion is being tested, which should enable significantly higher upload rates. In the future, up to 500 Mbit/s in upload would be realistic in the first step, but at the same time downloads could also increase further. With the current DOCSIS 3.1 standard, 1.5 to 3 Gbit/s in downloads is considered technically fast.
However, for the next big leap in performance, the cable network would have to be converted to DOCSIS 4.0. The expansion is significantly more complex, but would allow symmetrical gigabit speeds and bandwidths of up to 10 Gbit/s. Vodafone has been testing the new standard for some time, but a specific schedule for its introduction in Germany is still pending.
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