TDC NET pulls up about five tons of copper cables on Kongens Nytorv
As copper cables are pulled up on Kongens Nytorv, it marks an important step on the path away from the copper network and towards future-proof technologies with focus on green transition.
It has been 142 years since C. F. Tietgen installed the first copper connection in Denmark. In the following years, the copper network spread throughout the country and since then, it has kept Danes connected to each other. Today, newer and faster technologies – fiber and mobile network – have taken over.
More and more Danes switch over to especially fiber connections because of the faster speeds. The number of customers on the copper network is steadily increasing, and alone in 2024, we expect additional 100,000 costumers to switch from their copper connections. In a few years, there will be very few customers left, and the costs of maintaining the copper network will be too high for the individual customer to remain connected to it. That is why the time has come to phase out copper connections.
Putting our fingers in the past
As part of our large decommission project, we’ll close the copper connections at our more than 1,100 telephone exchanges that are located across the country. One by one, and with sufficient time for customers to find alternative solutions, we’re turning off the copper wires.
But what about all the copperlines in the ground? In several places, we will temporaily leave the copper wires in place because it would be too expensive and emit much more CO2 to dig them up. However, in some of the places of the country where the concentration of copper lines is high – and where we have the largest cables – we will take action to ensure good recycling of the copper for the benefit of the green transition.
When we are pulling up the approximately five tons of copper cables on Kongens Nytorv, which have been lying down there for more than a hundred years, we are practically putting our fingers in the past – these are some of the country’s oldest cables from the early days of the copper network. But the cables must be pulled up so that we can make room for a future with lightning-fast fiber connections. The work at Kongens Nytorv clearly indicates that the era of copper cables is coming to an end, and that a new – faster – chapter in our history is taking it place.