Quedlinburg – the town of talking houses

The district of Harz is located in the northern Harz foreland, in the border triangle of Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It is located directly on the central German economic axis between the Hanover-Halle-Leipzig and Berlin-Magdeburg-Göttingen conurbations. Here you will find numerous small and medium-sized companies, research institutions and craft businesses from a wide range of sectors, such as plastics and medical technology or the automotive supply and metal industries. The approximately 220,000 inhabitants in the 14 municipalities are part of a region steeped in history, as evidenced by the numerous historical buildings, monasteries, churches, castles and fortresses, many of which have a history of more than 1000 years. The district of Harz was only founded in 2007 as part of a district reform in which the three districts of Halberstadt, Quedlinburg and Wernigerode and the town of Falkenstein/Harz were merged.

In order to remain an attractive place to live, work and visit in the future, the district is investing in digital infrastructure, among other things. The first symbolic ground-breaking ceremony for broadband expansion in the Harz district took place in May 2018 in the Groß Orden industrial estate in Quedlinburg. In the first phase, in which industrial estates in Harzgerode, Halberstadt and Wernigerode as well as Quedlinburg will be expanded with federal funding by the end of the year, the economy in particular should benefit from the fast lines.

However, the topography of the region poses a number of challenges for civil engineering companies. In addition to the mountain ranges of the Harz low mountain range in the southwest of the district, the steep gradient of the Brocken, the highest elevation in northern Germany, poses particular difficulties for construction planners. In addition, more than 40 percent of the district is covered by forest. Laying fiber optic cables there must be particularly environmentally friendly.

Civil engineers can overcome these topographical challenges by using suitable installation methods. For example, the directional drilling method can be used to lay empty conduits in regions where the ground surface should remain untouched or where construction sites can only occupy a small area. This minimizes the impact on nature and the landscape and saves costs by eliminating construction site routes.

The federal broadband funding program of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) is supporting the expansion project to provide 19,861 households and 38 schools with bandwidths of at least 50 Mbit/s and 471 companies with data transfer rates of 1 Gbit/s and higher. The district of Harz will receive federal funding of EUR 3,148,261 and state funding of EUR 3,935,326 for the broadband expansion as part of a profitability gap model. It will also receive 787,065 euros of its own funds. For the fiber optic expansion, trenches with a total length of 431 kilometers will be dug and 287 kilometers of empty conduits will be laid.

Digital agenda

But Quedlinburg is not satisfied with fiber optics: with the help of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, the digital agenda has also been expanded to include free Wi-Fi. The UNESCO World Heritage town of Quedlinburg is thus benefiting a little more from the “Freifunk enthusiasm” and is taking on a pioneering role in the Harz region. Since last year, there are now more than 400 free access points in Quedlinburg. The hardware is provided through funding from the Digital Agenda of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

“Change is in the blood of the people of Saxony-Anhalt,” explained Economics Minister Prof. Dr. Armin Willingmann in March last year at the public presentation of the “Digital Agenda” in Magdeburg: “Whether it’s the Reformation, Bauhaus or, most recently, the economic successes after reunification – thinking modern and daring the future has always had a firm place in our region. That is why we in Saxony-Anhalt will also master the digital transformation. We laid out the roadmap for this at the end of 2017 with the ‘Digital Agenda’; now it’s a matter of filling this digital strategy with life.”

Talking houses

Tourism in particular benefits from the comprehensive Wi-Fi network. In the medieval UNESCO World Heritage town – where around 1,300 half-timbered buildings have been preserved to this day – Ulrich Thomas, member of the state parliament, came up with the idea of making houses talk.

This is done using a QR code. This is displayed on small yellow plastic signs in the shape of little houses on the walls of the buildings. If a passer-by scans it with their smartphone, they can listen to the 700-year history of the house – narrated by the current owner. Churches, pharmacies, inns and small stores are taking part in Quedlinburg’s private initiative “City of Talking Houses” and sharing their house stories, some of which have been painstakingly researched.

By the time the people of Quedlinburg are surfing on fiber optics, they will have come up with something new again. After all, change is in their blood.