Since 2023, 1&1 has been involved in the mobile communications market as the fourth German network operator. The start is bumpy - because of Vodafone, says the company from Montabaur. Is the competitor abusing its power and slowing down 1&1? The cartel office can now investigate this suspicion.
In the dispute with its competitor 1&1, the mobile phone network operator Vodafone has suffered a setback. Last fall, Vodafone went to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (OLG) to put a stop to allegations of market abuse against it. It wanted to have the Federal Cartel Office declared biased and biased, which would have given Vodafone a better chance in the dispute with 1&1.
But the Higher Regional Court rejected Vodafone's urgent application, as the court announced upon request. This does not result in so-called preventive legal protection. The Cartel Office is now allowed to make a decision in the separate Bonn market abuse proceedings - which is exactly what Vodafone wanted to prevent.
What the competitive clinch is about
The background to the dispute is the market entry of competitor 1&1, which bought its own mobile phone frequencies for the first time in 2019 and began building its own network in the years that followed. He wanted to be on equal terms with the established network operators Deutsche Telekom, O2 and Vodafone. But 1&1 only made progress at a snail's pace. At the beginning of 2023, the company from Montabaur clearly failed to comply with a state expansion requirement: instead of 1,000, 1&1 only operated five cell phone network locations.
This was largely due to the fact that the infrastructure operator Vantage Towers provided its customer 1&1 with far fewer locations than contractually agreed. Vantage Towers is about Vodafone's former radio tower division, which was spun off - other investors came on board, but Vodafone remained the company's largest shareholder.
1&1 suspected that Vodafone had influenced Vantage Towers so that the company handed over fewer locations to its annoying mobile communications competitor 1&1, thereby slowing down its mobile phone network expansion. Vodafone and Vantage Towers denied this.
Cartel Office expresses harsh criticism of Vodafone
The Cartel Office investigated 1&1's suspicions and initiated market abuse proceedings against Vodafone in 2023. The competition authorities later came to the preliminary conclusion that there was something to the accusation. The delayed provision of the locations should be viewed as a hindrance to 1&1 in violation of antitrust law, explained head of the authority Andreas Mundt in spring 2025.
This upset Vodafone. The company pulled out all the legal stops and wanted to prevent the cartel office's final decision by declaring the federal authority biased - but nothing came of the plan, as the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court decision shows.
A Vodafone spokesman said the question of bias had not been decided. Rather, the court simply rejected the special option of determining legal protection before a cartel office decision.
“We continue to be of the opinion that the Federal Cartel Office has disregarded essential procedural regulations,” said the Vodafone spokesman. "In our opinion, throughout the entire process, the authority acted with a clear bias in favor of 1&1, which, in our view, is also proven by the files available to us."
The procedural violations alone would make any decision by the authority illegal. If the decision is nevertheless negative, Vodafone will take all necessary legal steps. The Cartel Office firmly rejects Vodafone's allegations.
1&1 is making progress
And what does 1&1 say about the development of the legal dispute? “We welcome the fact that the cartel office can continue its work and now decide the case,” said the Montabaur-based company upon request. 1&1's cell phone network expansion, which started slowly, has now picked up speed; at the end of the second quarter of 2026, the company's antennas reached almost a third of German households.
Where it doesn't - i.e. in the other two thirds of German households - 1&1 customers are connected to another cell phone network, namely the Vodafone network. Despite the Vantage Towers dispute, the two mobile operators have now entered into a partnership, according to which 1&1 is allowed to use the Vodafone network and pays rent for it.
