The BREKO fiberdays on 15 and 16 March at the RheinMain CongressCentrum in Wiesbaden were not only a complete success for us. The workshops, discussions at the aconium stand and the keynote speech by aconium Managing Director Tim Brauckmüller once again demonstrated our expertise in the fiber optics sector. The organizer, the German Broadband Communications Association (BREKO), also spoke of the success of the trade fair. 6,500 visitors is a new record. 230 international exhibitors presented their latest fiber optic products and services on more than 10,000 square meters. There were also numerous keynote speeches and discussion panels.
On the first day of the trade fair, for example, a large number of visitors gathered at the “Municipal Marketplace” to listen to Tim Brauckmüller’s keynote speech. Under the title “Status Quo”, he summarized the current situation of fiber optic expansion. In addition, aconium experts provided information on other broadband topics in well-attended workshops. The grant recipients and other stakeholders involved in the funding process took the opportunity to exchange ideas with our experts on both days of the fair. At our stand, visitors were able to find out about the areas in which aconium GmbH provides support and advice, from digital twins to smart regions. There was also a great deal of interest in our training courses, measurement technology and data portals.
Politics and business used the congress trade fair for important messages
The congress trade fair had exciting news for the entire industry. According to BREKO, politicians and the industry are increasingly focusing on Open Access. Vattenfall Eurofiber GmbH and vitroconnect GmbH announced their partnership at the trade fair. Wemacom Telekommunikations GmbH and Stadtwerke Neumünster also signed a cooperation agreement at fiberdays and agreed Open Access between themselves.
In his keynote speech, Federal Minister Dr. Volker Wissing appealed to the entire industry via a live video link to further expand the open access efforts to date. The Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport Affairs (BMDV) is committed to Open Access and wants to “give further impetus” to this dynamic. However, he was not only optimistic about this topic and summarized the overall situation as follows: “By 2030, we want to have fiber optics to the home and the latest mobile communications standard everywhere where people live, work or travel. This is ambitious, but feasible – also because we can count on the industry. It invests, it expands and operates the networks, it does a great job. We support this with the right framework conditions, because network expansion is and will remain a market-driven and therefore self-economic task. In the German government’s gigabit strategy, we have agreed on measures to accelerate the expansion. Implementation is in full swing. For example, we are working on faster, digitalized procedures, have launched the new gigabit land register and have prepared an analysis of the potential for self-business fibre optic expansion in the municipalities. We are also realigning the federal government’s gigabit funding so that, in future, funding can be targeted to where there is the greatest need to catch up and where private-sector network expansion is not to be expected.”
Hesse’s Digital Minister Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus confirmed the assessment and added: “Our motto remains market before state and where the market does not invest, we as a state will continue to reliably support the municipalities in the expansion of fiber optics. The idea of potential analysis was introduced by Hesse and we support its use in gigabit funding at federal level. The pace of approval procedures must be stepped up further to speed up expansion, and we are already on the right of way here with our OZG broadband portal together with Rhineland-Palatinate.” At https://www.breitband-portal.de/ you can find more information.