On Tuesday, November 17, 2020, employees of aconium GmbH took part in the annual Lower Saxony-Bremen Broadband Summit. The event was broadcast live as an online conference by the Broadband Center Niedersachsen-Bremen. The topics covered included digitalization, broadband expansion, mobile communications and 5G in Lower Saxony and Bremen.
In the morning, Stefan Muhle, State Secretary at the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs, Labour, Transport and Digitalization, presented the progress and upcoming challenges in the above-mentioned areas. Among other things, Muhle reported that 92% of all schools in Lower Saxony have received funding for expansion and that implementation is progressing rapidly.
In addition, the state of Lower Saxony has revised the funding guidelines for co-financing and is offering to increase the state’s funding quota to 25 percent for the future and for projects already under construction. He also emphasized the good cooperation with the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure and aconium GmbH. Already 80 percent of all hospitals are being expanded with fiber optics and 80 percent of all buildings in Lower Saxony will also be supplied with 100 Mbit/s once the current funding measures have been completed.
The state of Bremen can also boast very good figures for broadband expansion, with 95% of all households in the state of Bremen already having gigabit coverage. Dr. Tobias Miethaner, Head of the Digital Society Department at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, gave the last presentation of the morning on broadband and mobile expansion from the perspective of the federal government. His presentation focused on future funding for gray areas; the funding guideline will start at the beginning of 2021 and will be implemented in two phases.
Finally, Dr. Miethaner provided information on a future federal program for mobile communications funding. 1.1 billion euros are available for the construction of around 5,000 mobile phone masts in areas without coverage. The federal mobile communications infrastructure company is to support the municipalities as a strong partner. Co-financing from the federal state is not planned. In the afternoon, further informative presentations were given by various market participants on the topics of fiber optic and mobile network expansion, future funding frameworks and 5G expansion.