On Wednesday, 20.04.2017, the symbolic ground-breaking ceremony took place at the commercial school in Tauberbischofsheim, marking the start of broadband expansion in the Main-Tauber district.
The door to the digital future has thus been opened wide, said District Administrator Reinhard Frank. The expansion will benefit companies, public institutions and private households.
As part of the project, a total of 207 km of civil engineering work will be carried out and 718 km of fiber optics will be laid. Once the expansion is complete, more than 60% of connections in the project area will be available with bandwidths of 100 Mbit/s or more. Furthermore, a total of 17,626 households and 1,654 companies will be reliably supplied with at least 50 Mbit/s. FTTB (fiber to the building) and vectoring are the technologies used for the expansion.
Digital infrastructure is as important today as roads, railways, electricity and water supply; without fast internet, a region would come to a standstill, continued District Administrator Frank. The expansion helps rural areas in particular to remain demographically and economically competitive. The digital infrastructure secures jobs and is an important factor in the region’s attractiveness to young people.
Dr. Veit Steinle from aconium GmbH emphasized at the celebratory event that there will be no digital divide between metropolitan areas and rural regions. The current special call for business parks is therefore explicitly aimed at municipalities, districts and business parks away from the major centers.