The German Broadband Association (BREKO) has awarded Klaus Pesch and Gerold Fahr the title of “Digital Politician”. The mayor of Ratingen and the council member and chairman of the supervisory board of Stadtwerke Ratingen were honored for their commitment to the expansion of fiber optics.

For three years, BREKO has been awarding prizes under the motto “Fiber for Future” to politicians who set important digital policy impulses in the course of their work. In Ratingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Klaus Pesch and Gerold Fahr put fiber optic expansion on the agenda at an early stage and played a decisive role in driving it forward by founding the network operator KomMITT as a subsidiary of Stadtwerke Ratingen.

The result: To date, 93% of Ratingen’s urban area has been connected with fiber to the building (FTTB) and residential (FTTH), and the comprehensive expansion should soon be completed. At the beginning of July, KomMITT was awarded the BREKO “Real Fiber” quality seal for its commitment to building FTTB and FTTH connections as a priority.

BREKO Managing Director Dr. Stephan Albers: “The successful provision of a municipality with digital infrastructure always begins with the mayor. In Ratingen, the politicians responsible created the right framework conditions early on and made the nationwide fiber optic expansion possible in the first place. In times of digital change, citizens, companies and administration all benefit from their dedicated work.”

Klaus Pesch, Mayor of Ratingen: “When we started the nationwide expansion of the fiber optic network in 2011, it was a big risk because we were breaking new ground with our municipal utilities. And the scale was huge. The network expansion carried out by KomMITT district by district is the biggest investment in the city’s infrastructure for decades. Today, we can say that the visionary decision at the time to focus entirely on fiber optics and to forge ahead without public funding was absolutely right. Because Ratingen has been able to gain a major head start in the increasingly important digital infrastructure.”

KomMITT Managing Director Stefan Hermes: “We have done it: we will soon have completed the nationwide fiber optic expansion in Ratingen. We are consistently relying on our own, state-of-the-art fiber optic technology ‘real fiber optics’ – without using outdated copper technologies. This will also enable us to offer the most innovative services for gigabit Internet, HD telephony and crystal-clear television in the future.”

More information on the “Fiber for Future” initiative and how to apply for the “Digitalpolitiker:in” award: https://www.brekoverband.de/breko/fiber-for-future/