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In the flood areas, Deutsche Telekom is building fiber optics right up to the house instead of rebuilding the old technology that has been destroyed. The house connection is free of charge for those affected. While the fiber optic connections will provide 1 gigabit per second, interim solutions ensure communication.

In the flood areas, Telekom previously had a copper network. A total of around 40,000 households are now to be equipped with the more modern fiber optic technology – which will be installed right into the building. Residents and property owners can also be active at Telekom http://www.telekom.de/jetzt-glasfaser register in order to be taken into account in fiber optic expansion. Anyone who would like to select a tariff for the fiber optic connection now can also do so. However, the order for broadband internet access via Telekom is not a prerequisite in order to be considered with a free fiber optic connection for the owners during expansion. The newly built fiber optic network is open to competition, so that residents can opt for another provider after the expansion.

Telekom would like to start the expansion as soon as possible, which should take around twelve months per area.

The following communities will be rebuilt with fiber optics

• North Rhine-Westphalia:
  • Bad Münstereifel (districts Arloff, Iversheim incl. Industrial area and city center)
  • Kall (districts of Kall, Sötenich and Urft)
  • Schleiden (districts of Gemünd, Malsbenden, Mauel, Nierfeld, Schleiden, Oberhausen and Olef)
  • Stolberg (districts of Mitte and Vicht)
• Rhineland-Palatinate:
  • Ahrbrück (district of Brück)
  • Altenahr
  • Antweiler
  • Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler (Heimersheim, Ahrweiler-Kernstadt, Neuenahr-Kernstadt and Walporzheim)
  • Dernau (including Marienthal)
  • Fuchshofen
  • Hönningen
  • Insul (Ahrstrasse and area north of the Ahr)
  • Mayschoss
  • Right
  • blame
  • Sinzig (districts Bad Bodendorf and core town)

Telekom is giving concrete form to the plans already announced to lay fiber optics in the flood areas, but had previously spoken of 35,000 affected households in which the copper network could not be repaired.

According to Telekom, anyone who currently has to rebuild their house should already plan for the fiber optic house connection, which usually ends in the house connection room and can be distributed from there to the individual rooms by cable. Corresponding cable ducts could therefore still be taken into account. The expansion should also take place in close coordination with the municipalities and the respective providers.

Temporary solutions restore the network for the time being

The Telekom infrastructure in the flood areas was so massively destroyed in the above-mentioned municipalities that interim solutions had to be put in place to get people online for the period of reconstruction. For example, a mobile radio mast was set up in Altenahr in order to improve cell phone capacities. In Eschweiler and Stolberg, multifunctional housings were equipped with a free WLAN solution. According to Telekom, service technicians proactively visited the residents in Sinzig to troubleshoot existing connections.