The town of Melle to the east of Osnabrück is pressing ahead with its fiber optic expansion. Ground-breaking ceremonies to improve the broadband infrastructure will take place at several locations this summer. On June 27, the ground was broken in the Wellingholzhausen industrial estate. There and in the neighboring district of Neuenkirchen, 80 companies are to be given access to fast Internet. District Administrator Michael Lübbersmann, who was on site for the start of construction, emphasized: “With the broadband expansion, we are strengthening the Osnabrück region as a dynamic business location.”
The infrastructure project in the district of Osnabrück is being funded with 15 million euros from the Federal Broadband Funding Program of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) as part of the first of two funding applications. The federal state of Lower Saxony is contributing 5 million euros in funding. The district and the 34 towns and municipalities belonging to the district are contributing just under 13.7 million euros. Upon completion, network connections with data transfer rates of at least 50 Mbit/s should be available to over 6,000 households. Access to gigabit connections will be made possible for 689 companies. They will then be able to use bandwidths of 1 Gbit/s and more. Four schools and seven kindergartens will also be connected to the NGA network. The connection of the commercial addresses in the southern part of the town is forward-looking for the region’s economy.
Melle’s mayor Reinhard Scholz expressly welcomes the investments for his town of 46,000 inhabitants: “The town of Melle has always scored points for its good transport connections. With a modern digital infrastructure, we have further good arguments for attracting new companies. At least as important is the support for existing businesses, which now benefit from fast internet.”
Graphic: aconium GmbH