On May 4, work on the comprehensive broadband expansion in the town of Weilheim in Upper Bavaria began with a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony on Narbonner Ring. “Now our ‘broadband baby’ is becoming a reality. The first 300 or so households and commercial users will soon have faster Internet access,” explained Markus Loth, 1st Mayor of Weilheim. Once the project is completed, over 80 percent of the connections will be supplied with data transfer rates of at least 100 Mbit/s.
Loth was joined by 3rd Mayor Angelika Flock, Deputy District Administrator Karl-Heinz Grehl, Harald Kühn (Member of Parliament) and Dr. Annette Schumacher, Member of the Management Board of aconium, a project sponsor entrusted by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI). “Not only the households in Weilheim, but also the schools will be supplied with fast Internet in the future – with fibre optic technology, they will be ideally equipped for digitalization,” said Schumacher. The expansion project will also benefit 16 schools in the town, which will benefit from an FTTB (fiber-to-the-building) connection. A total of 180 kilometers of fiber optic cable and 84 kilometers of empty conduits are to be laid in Weilheim by the end of 2018 to connect 278 households, 57 businesses and the schools to high-speed Internet.
The federal broadband funding program will provide 2.3 million euros for the expansion, with a further 620,000 euros coming from state funding. The town of Weilheim’s own contribution amounts to 1.7 million euros. With the help of the funding, the town can provide the last remaining white spots with a high-performance broadband infrastructure, bringing it a big step closer to the gigabit society.
Photo: Dr. Annette Schumacher (member of the aconium management board, left), Deputy District Administrator Karl-Heinz Grehl (4th from left), Mayor Markus Loth (Weilheim, 9th from left) with representatives of the construction companies and the telecommunications provider as well as other participants at the ground-breaking ceremony in Weilheim on 04.05.2018.
Photo credit: Stadtwerke Weilheim Energie GmbH