Am I a telecom provider? Your role under the German Telecommunications Act (TKG) and notification

Legal status: German Telecommunications Act (Telekommunikationsgesetz, TKG) as amended on 22 October 2026, checked on 6 November 2026. This page provides a general classification, not legal advice. Whether your offering is a public telecommunications network or a publicly available telecommunications service is a question for a lawyer admitted in Germany in the individual case, especially for the borderline cases below.

When are you a telecom provider under the TKG?

When you operate a public telecommunications network or provide publicly available telecommunications services. Both terms are defined in Section 3 TKG, and the notification under Section 5 and the security duties under Sections 165 to 168 depend on them. The following table summarises the wording and adds a check question for each term (our classification).

The TKG is linked to the place of the activity: it applies to everyone who operates networks or provides services in Germany (Section 1(2)). In our reading this also covers providers based abroad. What else applies to them is set out on the page for telecom providers based abroad.

Which roles does the TKG distinguish?

Three: operating a public network, providing a publicly available service, and merely contributing to the provision of a service. One company can hold several roles at once. A fibre provider with its own network and its own internet access product, for example, is both network operator and service provider.

The TKG does not define what “providing” means. The Bundesnetzagentur looks in its interpretive guidance on Section 172 at whether the service is owed to another party under a contract or for other reasons. The source does not say whether this criterion also applies to Section 5, but it is still a useful working question: who owes the service to the end customer? For the notification, the BNetzA expressly distinguishes between providing and contributing. Only a provider must notify under Section 5.

Contributing still has consequences. Section 165(1) (protection of the secrecy of telecommunications and of personal data) and the manual information procedure under Section 174(1) and (6) also apply to contributors. The following overview shows which role the Act names for the main duties. “Yes” means the wording names this role as addressee. The overview is our compilation, not an assessment of the individual case.

What the role means for the NIS2 duties, that is classification under Section 28 of the BSI Act (BSIG) and registration with the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), is set out on the page NIS2 for telecom providers in Germany.

Borderline cases: what is established and what remains open

For two borderline cases there are published statements by the BNetzA. For other frequently asked situations there are none. The table separates the two.

For the open situations, these are the questions we would prepare for legal advice. They reflect the terms in Section 3 and contain no answer:

• Is the offering open to an indefinite group of persons, or only to a fixed group, such as the employees or the tenants of a particular building?
• Does the network serve such publicly available services wholly or mainly, or mainly the company's own operations?
• Who is the end users' contracting party, who owes them the service, and who controls the network and the service technically?
• Is a charge made for use, separately or through rent or service charges?

Who must notify the activity under Section 5 TKG?

Anyone who commercially operates public telecommunications networks or commercially provides publicly available telecommunications services (Section 5(1) sentence 1). Only number-independent interpersonal communications services are exempt. The provision does not name contributors or operators of non-public networks.

According to the BNetzA, the notification gives an overview of the telecommunications market. It is not a security instrument and replaces neither the security concept under Section 166 TKG nor registration with the BSI under Section 33 BSIG.

What must be notified, when and how?

The intended start of the activity must already be notified, as must every change and the end of the activity, each without undue delay. The details:

The BNetzA points out that submarine cables are also transmission paths if they are used for public networks or services, and that existing notifications may then have to be amended. The form and contact details are on the BNetzA page on the notification duty (German).

A missing, incorrect, incomplete or late notification is an administrative offence (Section 228(2) no. 2 TKG). Classification and maximum amount are on the page fines under Section 228 TKG.

Example: role assessment with reasons

Fictitious example, not a client. A regional fibre provider with 12 employees operates its own fibre network in three municipalities and sells internet access over it to residential and business customers. Since this year it has also offered telephony with its own phone numbers via a wholesale supplier's platform and sells SIM cards from a mobile network operator to business customers for remote reading of meters and pumps. There is guest Wi-Fi in its customer centre. A housing cooperative wants to connect its own in-house network to the fibre network and pass internet access on to its tenants.

The table is our classification based on the wording of the Act and the statements by the authorities cited above. You can adopt the columns and order for your company. The “Reasons” column matters most: if the authority asks, it shows why you decided as you did.

Step 9 leads to the next duty: new services change the circumstances on which the security concept is based. When this requires a new submission is explained on the page security concept under Section 166 TKG.

The role assessment is available as a blank Excel template with this example under templates for download.

Three typical gaps

Role clarified: what comes next?

Once the role is clear, the security officer, security concept, protective measures and reporting routes follow from it. The order in which the duties arise for individual groups of providers is shown on the pages duties as a fibre network operator, VoIP and cloud telephony, Wi-Fi and hotspots and municipal utilities with a telecoms arm. Where you stand is shown by the status review (stage 1). We have acted as security officers under Section 166 TKG and have drawn up and updated security concepts and agreed them with the Bundesnetzagentur. The legal classification of open borderline cases belongs in the hands of a lawyer.