Düsseldorf, July 3, 2019
The federal and state governments are providing more than 1.5 billion euros in funding for 122 projects in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) as part of broadband funding. “As things stand, a total of around 2 billion euros will be invested in the future of rural areas in North Rhine-Westphalia,” said Tim Brauckmüller, Managing Director of the federal project management agency, during the NRW Broadband Dialogue.
Together with more than 90 applicants (municipalities and districts), the broadband expansion is being realized. In order to accomplish this, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia invited participants to an exchange on the challenges of expanding gigabit projects. The meeting was organized by Gigabit.NRW, the state’s broadband center. More than 70 business developers, municipal employees and experts discussed construction processes, planning and milestones for the coming years. Construction manager Andre Overfeld (City of Xanten) explained the important function of a contact person who moderates between the various building permit authorities and civil engineering companies. Broadband coordinator Stefan Syrek from the Oberberg district explained his approach to accelerating the planning phase of the expansion.
Tim Brauckmüller: “We need to speed up the expansion, and this can only succeed if the federal, state and local authorities work hand in hand. Every single person here is convinced that this infrastructure will be indispensable for the future of the regions,” said the Managing Director of the federal project management agency.
Brauckmüller also praised the commitment of the citizens’ initiatives, which are particularly active in NRW: “We must not forget that without the commitment of the citizens in many places, the expansion cannot progress – everyone helps and many join in,” said Brauckmüller.
In the further course of the event, Brauckmüller provided information about the possibilities of the so-called special calls for schools, hospitals and commercial areas of the federal funding program of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI).
Together with Eva Lingrün from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Innovation, Digitalization and Energy of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, they answered questions from participants about the funding. Eva Lingrün thanked the broadband coordinators and broadband representatives for their excellent cooperation, which will now lead to further applications for funding from the federal and state governments.
The basis for new projects is that the telecommunications companies show where they are building themselves and where no expansion can be expected without subsidies. Good cooperation between industry and the public sector is also necessary in the planning of school and commercial connections, as well as in the expansion of mobile communications, in order to make efficient use of subsidies.
Background: North Rhine-Westphalia is in fifth place in the state rankings with 91.3% of households covered with 50 Mbit/s (source: report on the federal broadband atlas at the end of 2018 https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/Breitbandausbau/Breitbandatlas-Karte/start.html).
In 2017, the districts and municipalities caught up when applying for federal funding and received additional funding, including from the state. After the funding was approved, the municipalities and districts launched tendering procedures in which telecommunications companies could apply to receive money for the expansion. Many tenders have been completed and contracts concluded, and the telecommunications companies are beginning their planning and construction work.
The federal funding program(http://www.bundesfoerderung-breitband.de/) was launched in 2015 and was switched to gigabit/s in August 2018 on the basis of the current coalition agreement, thus switching many projects from vectoring to fibre optics. A total of almost 20,000 kilometers of routes are to be built in NRW.
Further information on broadband expansion in NRW: https://gigabit.nrw.de/
Information on the federal funding program: https://www.bmvi.de/Breitbandfoerderung
Information on calls and funding opportunities on the project sponsor’s website: https://atenekom.eu/kompetenzen/foerdermittelberatung/projekttraeger-breitband/