The Main-Kinzig district will provide all of its citizens, companies and institutions with gigabit connections across the board by 2026. For this, it set the course early on: In 2016, the district was one of the first municipalities to be active in the federal broadband funding program.
Today, all schools and educational institutions, all hospitals and care facilities, all properties owned by the district (and many properties owned by local authorities), all new development areas in recent years as well as many companies and half of all industrial estates are supplied with fiber optics – with noticeable positive consequences for the district. Fast internet strengthens its position as an attractive business and living location. The district will now sustainably promote this positive development with a further expansion and make gigabit available to all citizens and companies outside of business parks and prepare all municipal facilities for e-governance and digital administration. In January 2022, the district was one of the first applicants to receive the green light for a subsidized expansion for this further district-wide gigabit expansion in the new Grey-Spot program of the Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV). The federal government, state and local authorities are investing a total of 200 million euros in the gigabit project. Thanks to forward-looking planning and efficient implementation, the Main-Kinzig district can now enter the construction phase ahead of schedule: The groundbreaking ceremony in Hasselroth-Gondsroth marked the start of the expansion work for tens of thousands of new gigabit connections in the east and west of the district. Guests included Hesse’s Digital Minister Prof. Dr. Kristina Sinemus, District Administrator Thorsten Stolz as well as aconium Managing Director Tim Brauckmüller and Ulf Freienstein, Deputy Overall Project Manager at aconium.
A huge project is transforming the region
The project is huge: thousands of kilometers of fibre optic cable and empty conduits will be laid between Hanau and Schlüchtern as part of the project. The densely populated west with numerous connections in the city of Hanau will be connected with gigabit as well as the sparsely populated east with its remote farms and hamlets. The Main-Kinzig district is relying on the operator model for the expansion: The district’s own Breitband Main-Kinzig GmbH is building the passive network infrastructure with the help of subsidies and leasing it to a private network operator. The ongoing income from the lease guarantees the refinancing of the investment costs. The citizens, companies and institutions in the Main-Kinzig district will thus receive a high-performance fiber optic network from municipal hands – precisely where a purely private-sector expansion would not have been expected in the next three years. The project was made possible by 100 million euros from the BMDV’s broadband funding, 80 million euros from the state of Hesse’s gigabit funding and the municipal contribution of 20 million euros.