Rainer Bomba, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, handed over a total of 32 funding decisions for funds from the billion-euro federal program for broadband expansion (4th funding round) on 16.08.2017.
The municipalities will thus receive a total of more than 114 million euros in federal funding to connect underserved areas to high-speed Internet. The funding from the BMVI will enable investments of more than 224 million euros to be made locally.
Alexander Dobrindt, Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure:
“With the funding decisions, we are connecting more than 76,000 households and 5,300 companies to the Turbo Internet. We are using the latest technology and building 9,600 kilometers of new fiber optics. “
The federal funding program provides technology-neutral funding for grid expansion. The funding rate is 50 to 70 percent of the eligible costs. As the federal program can be combined with state and EU funding programs, the funding rate can be increased to up to 90 percent. A total of around four billion euros is available for broadband funding from federal funds. The federal program provides underserved areas with network access of at least 50 Mbit per second.
All municipalities had already received funding decisions for preparatory planning services of up to 50,000 euros each from this program. The network expansion can now begin with the 224 million euros that have now been approved.
Tim Brauckmüller, Managing Director of aconium GmbH:
“What is true for private households is even more true for companies. Many business applications sometimes require high bandwidths and demand high-performance infrastructures – especially in rural areas! This is precisely where broadband access infrastructure is needed in order to make the location competitive and attractive for companies and families. “
Photo: Rainer Bomba, State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, handed over funding decisions at the BMVI on 16.08.2017.
Photo credit: BMVI