Soest district invests in the future – digital technology for business, residents and visitors

15.09.2018

Luftbild, Warstein, Kraniche über dem Warsteiner Wald, Kreis Soest, Soester Börde, Nordrhein-Westfalen,

In May of this year, the North Rhine-Westphalian district of Soest received notification of the final amount of funding from the federal broadband funding program. On August 22, the broadband expansion began with a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony in Soest-Röllingsen.

The 14 municipalities in the district and the district town of Soest will use the improvement in digital infrastructure to digitize administration, use new technologies in education and strengthen the business location, among other things. District Administrator Eva Irrgang presented the district of Soest’s digitalization strategy at the event “Wir sehen Land: digital! – Opportunities of digitalization for rural areas” organized by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software (IESE). Irrgang: “Digitalization should not just be limited to e-government and local government services, but should also encompass space and society.” The prerequisite for the success of this three-pillar model is comprehensive broadband coverage.

In order to connect all commercial and local areas that have not yet been able to reach 30 Mbit/s to the fast Internet, the district is relying on the expansion with fiber optics and FTTP (Fiber-To-The-Pipe), the use of existing duct systems to lay the cables. Irrgang: “We are proud to be the first district in North Rhine-Westphalia to have prevailed with a future-proof application that relies on fiber optics right through to every house, i.e. on so-called FTTB (Fiber-To-The-Building) technology.”

The district of Soest will receive a total of almost 10.32 million euros in federal funding for broadband expansion. In addition, there are 9.47 million euros in state funding and a good 842,000 euros in own funds. “Without the funding, broadband expansion would not work in our rural area,” says Irrgang. The open access backbone financed by subsidies creates enormous incentives for the free market, making private-sector expansion more attractive again for telecommunications companies.
Once the 485 kilometers of civil engineering work and the laying of 486 kilometers of empty conduits have been completed, more than 9,000 households and 54 institutional users, including 16 emergency services control centers, three schools, a town hall, two youth hostels, a youth center, eleven daycare facilities, a police station, a recycling station, two galleries and 16 cultural centers, will be able to use bandwidths of at least 50 Mbit/s. In addition, 770 companies will have access to data transmission rates of at least 1 Gbit/s. Furthermore, data transfer rates of at least 1 Gbit/s are to be available for 770 companies.

Fast Internet makes people in Soest mobile

Among other things, the Guide4Blind project will benefit from the faster internet connection in the district of Soest. It is aimed at people with visual impairments and consists of several apps:

  • The “Soester BusGuide” can identify buses and express stop requests.
  • The further development “Bus Connects – Simply Mobile” allows the smartphone to communicate directly with the on-board computer of the buses and to pass on the information read out acoustically to the users.
  • With the “Soester CityGuide” app, it is possible to discover the 50,000-inhabitant town of Soest with its alleyways and nooks and crannies via audio guide using navigation technology.

Soest was one of the most important Hanseatic towns in the Middle Ages and benefited early on from its good location on the Hellweg trade route. Thanks to salt extraction and iron processing, the town even engaged in international trade and rose to become an important commercial and trading town. Today, the district town is a medium-sized center for the surrounding communities and attracts many visitors and people from the region with its old town center. The listed green sandstone churches and half-timbered houses have been restored in recent years. The town walls are still almost completely intact and the Soestbach stream is gradually being uncovered again. Soest’s investments in sustainable attractiveness for residents and visitors do not neglect the use of new technologies. One example is the solar-powered train for city tours. It offers space for 54 people and travels through Soest city center at a maximum speed of 25 kilometers per hour. When it rains, the energy comes from the power socket.

Companies in Soest benefit from digitalization

The economy in the Soest region benefits from its favorable location. The Soest district is home to automotive suppliers, plastics manufacturers, food producers and energy and building technology companies. Thanks to the connection to the A44, there are also businesses in the logistics, transportation and wholesale sectors. The companies are involved in research and cooperation projects with the South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, which has been based in Soest for 50 years. Future ideas are developed there in areas such as electrical energy technology, automation technology and agriculture. Companies based in the district of Soest that require support in the areas of innovation promotion, technology scouting, for example in the provision of information on current research projects, and innovation management, can contact Wirtschaftsförderung Kreis Soest GmbH. It is also an important partner in the area of internet supply and digitalization, for example when it comes to finding cooperation partners or experts for digitalization projects.

The business development agency’s broadband check determines the current and target status of a company’s broadband requirements. In the next step, the experts work out the broadband supply options at the respective location, on the basis of which the companies can make further decisions. The planned supply, for example as part of the federal broadband funding program, is also taken into account.
“Thanks to the federal funding, we are bringing fiber optics to every company here,” says Volker Ruff, Managing Director of Wirtschaftsförderung Kreis Soest. “Thanks to the funding and the in-house expansion currently underway, we have 96% coverage with connections of over 50 Mbit/s. Of this, 12 percent is pure fiber optic (FTTB).”
The broadband expansion in the district of Soest is currently creating the infrastructural basis for further advancing the digitization projects that have already been initiated and are still in the pipeline.
Federal broadband funding
Broadband expansion in the district of Soest

Cover photo: Warstein, Soest district, North Rhine-Westphalia
Photo credit: Hans Blossey
Photos of people: District Administrator Eva Irrgang (Kreis Soest), photo credit Thomas Weinstock; Volker Ruff (Wirtschaftsförderung Kreis Soest GmbH), photo credit: Wirtschaftsförderung Kreis Soest GmbH
Photos below: Impressions from the district of Soest (Möhnesee and Soest market square), photo credits: Hans Blossey