Freckleben. The entire town of Freckleben can now surf the internet at super-fast speeds! With the help of the Saxony-Anhalt Ministry of Infrastructure and Digital Affairs, the Salzlandkreis district has provided the last remaining households in the Freckleben district of Aschersleben with broadband connections. This means that bandwidths of up to 1 Gbit/s are now possible. The state provided around €520,000 in funding for this project. Freckleben is the last place in the Salzlandkreis district to have been upgraded using public funds from the district administration. Minister Dr Lydia Hüskens, District Administrator Markus Bauer and Aschersleben's Mayor Steffen Amme visited Freckleben in person on Wednesday to mark the completion of the construction work and the commissioning of the infrastructure.
District Administrator Markus Bauer said on site that thanks to the commitment of the Salzland district and with the help of the state and the EU, many small towns in the region have been provided with broadband connections in recent years, which would otherwise not have been developed independently by the telecommunications companies due to a lack of economic viability. "We have ensured that the framework conditions in rural areas are just as good as in the major cities of Magdeburg or Halle. A modern infrastructure is equally important for companies and families who seek their entrepreneurial and private fortune away from the metropolitan regions." It is important to him that the areas of housing, business and science are always considered together.
Dr Lydia Hüskens, Minister for Infrastructure and Digital Affairs of Saxony-Anhalt, said at the launch: "The state is consistently focusing on fibre optics for the gigabit expansion, as this is the only way to ensure that the data rates of the future can be managed in the long term. In this way, we are creating an incentive for further companies to settle here, increasing the quality of life for citizens and at the same time ensuring good digital framework conditions, for example for working from home or medical tele-applications." The Minister emphasised: "We are working flat out to create modern structures throughout Saxony-Anhalt so that people can settle here and companies can be established and continue to grow. This is the only way we can make rural areas outside the conurbations more attractive and our federal state more appealing to people from other regions."
Both expressed particular gratitude to the residents around Franz Prantl, who had drawn attention to various locations in Freckleben that had not been connected either by telecommunications companies on a commercial basis or as part of the subsidised broadband expansion programme. As a result, the Salzlandkreis district applied for further funding, which was approved. Following a proper tender process, Telekom Deutschland AG was awarded the contract. It laid the necessary cables and installed the distribution boxes for a total of 125 households between the Wipper river in the south and the railway line in the north of the town. However, completion of the work was delayed because it was only a few weeks ago that it became possible to cross the railway line.
Mayor Steffen Amme explained: "The digital infrastructure is crucial for the future of our city. The aim is therefore to secure its future viability and competitiveness by expanding a faster broadband network. I am delighted that all households in Freckleben are now supplied with broadband. This strengthens the local economy and improves the quality of life of our citizens."
With the completion of the project in Freckleben, the Salzlandkreis district has successfully created an infrastructure that will continue to meet future requirements. More than 33 million euros in subsidies alone have been invested in the region. Added to this were and still are investments by telecommunications companies, which are independently committed to expansion in the Salzlandkreis district. Markus Bauer: "Thanks to support from the EU, the federal government and the state, we have provided more than 36,000 households and 3,800 companies in the Salzlandkreis district with high-speed internet." This was based on considerations made by the district administration in 2015. After that, an extensive market research process in cooperation with the towns and municipalities was used to determine the areas that were eligible for funding. Most of the development has already been completed in recent years.