Malone Cable Threat Sparks Copper Revival in Europe

For Europe’s telecommunications companies, wires are the new wireless.

Vodafone Group Plc is considering a bid for Kabel Deutschland AG, Germany’s biggest cable operator, with a market value topping 6 billion euros ($8 billion), a person familiar with the proposal said. And a week earlier, billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Global Inc. agreed to buy Virgin Media Inc. for about $16 billion, adding 5 million subscribers in the U.K. The growing interest in cable assets has spurred the region’s cash-strapped former telecommunications monopolies to bet on a trusted asset to keep customers from defecting: decades-old copper wires. As the wireless business becomes increasingly crowded, Deutsche Telekom AG, Telekom Austria AG, Belgacom SA and dozens of other carriers are testing a technology that can make networks built for simple voice calls speedy enough to carry high-definition movies and music. Already available for a small number of users, the method lets the providers match the speed offered by cable and avoid spending billions of dollars to lay new fiber-optic lines.