Cluster 4 was officially launched in the district of Fulda on March 28. District Administrator Bernd Woide and Mayor Klaus-Dieter Vogler met with representatives of the municipality of Hofbieber and the project sponsor, aconium, of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure(BMVI), in Dipperz town hall.
Mayor Vogler welcomed the participants and thanked everyone involved for the successful implementation of the infrastructure project. In particular, the connection of remote farms to the high-speed Internet is now contributing to the realization of a comprehensive broadband network throughout the district. In his speech, District Administrator Woide emphasized that the district of Fulda is happy to play a pioneering role in broadband expansion and would like to maintain the rapid pace for the timely completion of the project for the remaining construction phases in the district.
In the district of Fulda, broadband expansion is seen as regional development, so that not only private households but also public institutions benefit from the higher bandwidths promoted in urban and peripheral areas. Manfred Henning, Regional Manager of aconium GmbH, said: “As the project sponsor, we are also supporting the district of Fulda during the construction phase and are delighted that today’s opening of Cluster 4 marks further positive progress in the broadband expansion project.”
The ground-breaking ceremony for the broadband expansion in the district of Fulda as part of a profitability gap model took place on March 10, 2017. The third expansion cluster in Hilders was most recently put into operation on December 18. Cluster 4 comprises the Hessian municipalities of Dipperz, Hofbieber and the Oberbernhards district of Hilders and will now provide 3600 households with high-speed Internet following the launch. By the end of the district-wide project in the district of Fulda, a total of 245 kilometers of empty conduits and 572 kilometers of fiber optic cable will have been laid and 192 cable distributors installed. This will involve 150 kilometers of civil engineering work. More than 10,500 households, 23 institutional customers, including 16 schools, five town halls and a hospital, as well as over a thousand companies will benefit from the subsidized broadband expansion with Internet speeds of at least 50 Mbps.
The federal government is contributing around 10.1 million euros to the project as part of the federal broadband funding program. The state of Hesse is funding the district’s broadband expansion with two million euros and the local authorities are contributing around 4.7 million euros themselves.
Photo: Christoph Erb (3rd from left, district coordinator for the expansion project), Mayor of Dipperz Klaus-Dieter Vogler (4th from left), Bernd Woide (5th from left, District Administrator of Fulda), Manfred Henning (Regional Manager Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate aconium) with representatives of the telecommunications companies carrying out the work at the commissioning of Cluster 4 on 28.03.2018 in Dipperz.
Photo credit: aconium GmbH