On December 8, 2017, broadband expansion in the district of Olpe began with an official ground-breaking ceremony in Attendorn, Neu-Listernohl district. After the final funding decision was handed over in July of this year, Olpe is now the first district in North Rhine-Westphalia to benefit from the federal funding program for broadband expansion.
In a total of six expansion areas, almost 11,000 households as well as daycare centers and other public institutions will benefit from fast Internet connections with bandwidths of at least 50 Mbit/s. In addition, 1,575 companies will be supplied with bandwidths of at least 50 Mbit/s at the end of the project, 350 of which will already be supplied with at least 1 Gbit/s using FTTB (Fibre To The Building) technology. The federal government is contributing almost 4.45 million euros to the project.
District Administrator Frank Beckenhoff explained that fast Internet connections have become indispensable for both private and business life in Olpe and represent an indispensable digital advantage for the location. In addition to the local members of the federal and state parliaments, Dr. Matthias Heider, Johannes Vogel and Jochen Ritter, District Administrator Frank Beckehoff, District Director Theo Melcher, Stefan Glusa from TKG Südwestfalen, the mayors of the participating municipalities, Deutsche Telekom employees and representatives of the project sponsor of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, aconium GmbH, attended the official launch.
Drolshagen’s mayor Uli Berghof praised the good cooperation between the towns, municipalities and the district administration. The cooperation between the district administration and the funding bodies has now led to the funded project in North Rhine-Westphalia, said Berghof. “The Olpe district clearly shows that the federal funding program has an impact exactly where it is needed and thus helps to prevent the digital divide in society,” emphasized Johannes Feldmann, COO of aconium GmbH. He was confident that the broadband project would maintain the attractiveness of the location for business and the population alike in the future.
Photo above: aconium GmbH at the ground-breaking ceremony for the Olpe district in Attendorn on 08.12.2017.
Photos below (l-r): Rolf Zöllner (Deputy Mayor of the town of Lennestadt), Andreas Reinéry (municipality of Kirchhundem), Ulrich Berghof (town of Drolshagen), Member of the State Parliament Jochen Ritter, Dietmar Heß (municipality of Finnentrop), Bernd Clemens (municipality of Wenden), Peter Weber (town of Olpe), Member of the Bundestag Johannes Vogel, Peter Kroppen (Head of Infrastructure Sales at Deutsche Telekom), Manfred Henning (Branch Manager of aconium GmbH, project sponsor for the federal broadband funding program) at the ground-breaking ceremony in the district of Olpe. Verena Scharf (r., aconium GmbH) in conversation with Christian Mewes and Kerstin Müller (both Deutsche Telekom) in Attendorn on 08.12.2017.
Photo credits: aconium GmbH / Jens Gowasch