On April 18, 2018, District Administrator Andreas Müller, Mayor Nicole Reschke, Mathis Entrup, employee of the regional office for North Rhine-Westphalia of aconium GmbH, the sovereign project sponsor of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure, representatives of the telecommunications company responsible for the expansion and the Arnsberg district government came together in the Hohenhain district of Freudenberg for the official ground-breaking ceremony.
This marks the start of broadband expansion in the towns of Bad Berleburg, Bad Laasphe, Freudenberg, Hilchenbach and Kreuztal as well as in the municipality of Erndtebrück. District Administrator Müller assured that 98% of all households in the district will be provided with fast Internet connections by May next year: “This will make us the first district in North Rhine-Westphalia to provide its citizens with fast Internet!” Mathis Entrup emphasized the importance of broadband expansion as an opportunity for the development of rural regions and introduced the new regional office of aconium for North Rhine-Westphalia as a point of contact for municipalities and districts for all questions and concerns relating to federal broadband funding. Together with the partner districts of Olpe, Hochsauerlandkreis, Märkischer Kreis and Soest, the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein forms the South Westphalia region, which benefits considerably from a business structure characterized by medium-sized companies and is considered the strongest industrial region in North Rhine-Westphalia. A future-proof broadband infrastructure is a key pillar for development.
Due to the rural character of the region, the supply situation in the district has so far been inhomogeneous. The expansion of the digital infrastructure is intended to secure and further strengthen the attractiveness of the area as a place to live and work. By mid-2019, more than 860 kilometers of fibre optic cable are to be laid in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district and over 120 cable distributors connected in order to provide 15,555 underserved households and almost 800 companies with data transmission rates of at least 50 Mbit/s. The expansion will also benefit 16 schools and a hospital, which will be connected using FTTB (fiber to the building) technology. A total of over 1.8 million euros will flow into the project in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district from the federal broadband funding program. The district will receive further funding of over 1.6 million euros from the directive of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia to co-finance the federal program.
Photo: Tim Kröning (Westnetz district champion Freudenberg-Betzdorf), Giovanni Lo Re (Arnsberg district government), Mathis Entrup (aconium), Dr. Catharina Friedrich, (Westnetz Head of Regional Center Sieg), Nicole Reschke (Mayor of Freudenberg), District Administrator Andreas Müller (Siegen-Wittgenstein district), Sandra Sonnack (innogy FTTx projects officer), Daniel Caspari (innogy, project manager) in front of a suction excavator at the ground-breaking ceremony in Freudenberg, Siegen-Wittgenstein district (North Rhine-Westphalia) on 18.04.2018
Photo credit: Siegen-Wittgenstein district