PRESS RELEASE
Go-ahead for broadband expansion by Tele Columbus
City of Halle receives funding for expansion of fibre-optic network
Halle (Saale), Germany, 7 July 2020. Yesterday, the city of Halle in Saxony-Anhalt officially received the funding for the implementation of the planned broadband expansion. Running until mid-2022, the Tele Columbus AG subsidiary HL komm Telekommunikations GmbH with its PŸUR Business brand will now undertake the implementation of the fibre-optic development for areas in the city that do not yet have sufficiently fast Internet access.
In Halle yesterday, the symbolic funding cheque was handed over by Dr Armin Willingmann, Minister of Economics of the State of Saxony-Anhalt, to the Mayor of the City of Halle, Dr Bernd Wiegand. The expansion project is scheduled to begin this autumn.
“Halle is an attractive and growing city in the metro area of Mitteldeutschland. For the further development of the biggest city in Saxony-Anhalt high-speed broadband Internet accesses in order to allow for a stable and fast exchange of information and knowledge are indispensable”, highlights Dr Bern Wiegand, the Mayor of the City of Halle (Saale). “We will no close the remaining network gaps and cover the so-called white spots in terms of inexistence of high-speed Internet. Thereby we are securing and creating jobs and support innovation and growth in our city.”
“As market leader for broadband supply, we are happy to be able to realise the fibre-optic development project for the city of Halle. The features of the network we will be creating here ensure that it will meet the growing demands for excellent broadband coverage over the coming decades,” said Dr Daniel Ritz, CEO of Tele Columbus AG.
In the course of the project, the fibre-optic city network will be expanded to include 3,000 schools, private households and commercial enterprises. This will allow private households to have access to a minimum download rate of 50 Mb/s, companies will be able to download and upload at a minimum rate of 100 Mb/s, and schools will have access to download rates of up to 1,000 Mb/s.
New fibre-optic lines with a total length of around 100 kilometres will be built in cooperation with local public works companies. Private users will have the fibre-optic lines laid right up to the buildings or distributors. Schools and commercial enterprises will receive direct fibre-optic lines to their company or school networks. The city districts taken into consideration for the expansion plan are distributed across the entire urban area. The project is being financed through public funding by both the European Union and the state of Saxony-Anhalt to the total amount of EUR 10.5 million.
About us
Tele Columbus AG is one of Germany’s leading fibre network operators which reaches more than 3 million homes. Via its brand PŸUR, the Company, offers high-speed internet including telephony and more than 250 TV channels. All of this via a digital entertainment platform that combines linear TV with video on demand entertainment. To its housing association partners the Tele Columbus Group offers tailored models of cooperation and state-of-the-art services such as telemetric and tenant portals. As a full-service partner for municipalities and regional utilities, the Company is actively supporting the fibre-based infrastructure and broadband internet expansion in Germany. For its business customers the Group offers carrier services and corporate solutions on its proprietary fibre network. Besides its headquarter in Berlin, the Company has locations in Hamburg, Leipzig, Ratingen and Unterföhring/Munich. Since January 2015, Tele Columbus AG is listed on the regulated market (Prime Standard) of the Frankfurt Stock exchange.
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