Tuesday, 29.05.2018 in sunny Wittmund: In “tropical” temperatures for the north, District Administrator Holger Heymann (District of Wittmund), Stefan Gottesleben, Regional Office for Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Schleswig Holstein of aconium GmbH, the official project sponsor of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI), as well as representatives of the municipalities and the Broadband Competence Center of Lower Saxony, gathered to celebrate the signing of the contract between the north-west German district and the telecommunications company carrying out the work, as well as the ground-breaking ceremony.
Broadband expansion will begin this month in seven municipalities in the district of Wittmund and will continue successively in the remaining municipalities. The areas will gradually be activated for the higher data transmission rates. The project is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2019. The total investment for the expansion amounts to around 5.97 million euros. Of this, almost 3 million euros will be provided by the BMVI from the federal broadband subsidy. A further 2.1 million euros will be provided by the state of Lower Saxony. The economic viability gap not covered by subsidies will be borne equally by the district and the towns and municipalities belonging to the district. This municipal contribution amounts to just under 873,000 euros.
The aim of the expansion is to economically develop underserved areas with a future-proof, high-performance broadband network (NGA network). A total of 115 kilometers of fiber optic cable will be laid for this purpose. FTTB (fiber-to-the-building) and FTTH (fiber-to-the-home) solutions will also be used. Additional cable distributors will increase the bandwidth in the area. In this expansion stage, 3,541 connections will be renewed. The four business parks will be connected with symmetrical access of 1 Gbit/s and more. 3,274 households will have access to data transmission rates of at least 50 Mbit/s. Of these, 1,500 households and five elementary school will be connected directly to the fiber optic network (FTTB/FTTH) in a future-proof manner, meaning that significantly higher bandwidths are possible here.
District Administrator Holger Heymann emphasized the importance of digital infrastructure for rural regions and expressed his thanks for the funding. He takes a positive view of the broadband expansion in the district of Wittmund: “Thanks to this funding initiative, we can increasingly equip rural commercial areas with fast Internet connections. These are now optimally connected on all routes – both on the road and on the data highway.”
Photo: District Administrator Holger Heymann (Wittmund district, 8th from left) and Stefan Gottesleben (aconium, 3rd from left) with representatives of the municipalities, the construction companies and the telecommunications provider on 29.05.2018 in Wittmund.
Photo credit: Wittmund district