Stadtwerke Steinfurt, a public utility that has 42 employees and is tasked with supplying services to around 30,000 inhabitants, is proactively optimizing its municipality’s network infrastructure with broadband solutions from euromicron
Gas and water – that was what Stadtwerke Steinfurt used to offer citizens. But thanks to a cutting-edge broadband network in two industrial estates to date, planned and installed by the euromicron Group, the utility company now also has a broadband network infrastructure for communications and information services (telephony, Internet, IPTV). “The market has been liberalized and, thanks to our existing supply activities, we have direct access to all buildings. As a result, we can improve what we have to offer citizens and give our municipality a source of revenue that pays off for citizens and strengthens the municipality’s independence – a classic win-win situation,” says Rolf Echelmeyer, Managing Director of Stadtwerke Steinfurt.
A comprehensive fiber-optic network extending up to the residential and commercial buildings is required to enable a state-of-the-art, future-proof broadband supply that gives all households and businesses access to the latest means of information and communications. Up to now, only the central cabinets were connected to fiber-optic cable in Steinfurt. “Our development plans envisaged creating a leading-edge, powerful and future-oriented fiber-optic network in Steinfurt and environs. The network’s structure took into account the existing fiber-optic links and resources,” explains Dr. Petra Hesselbarth, Managing Director of euromicron systems GmbH.
The Doctor of Physics, whose company is part of the euromicron Group, the nationwide specialist for network infrastructures, assumed responsibility over a year ago for the newly founded group-wide “Broadband Initiative”, in which euromicron’s entire broadband expertise is pooled. “We have noted that broadband expansion outside of cities and conurbations is sluggish and so entire rural districts are being cut off from economic progress,” says Hesselbarth. euromicron developed strategies and structured implementation concepts for driving broadband expansion everywhere and in an economically expedient way.
Stadtwerke Steinfurt’s broadband network has been designed as a point-to-point topology. The main component is an Ethernet switch in the central office, to which optical fibers firmly assigned to each business customer are connected. The guaranteed bandwidth is usually 100 Mbit/sec. Great flexibility is ensured in the field by the establishment of technical rooms with passive distributor technology, since new customers can be connected locally if and when required and the laid fiber-optic cables do not have to be cut. The number of ports can be increased in these rooms through the installation of active technology. A local switch is connected to the central office via an uplink port and further customers can be connected.
However, the network structure also enables rollout of G-PON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) technology. This can be achieved by installing a G-PON switch (OLT – Optical Line Terminal) in the central office, an optical splitter for the fibers in the field and a media converter (ONT – Optical Network Terminator) at the customer premises. The advantages of the passive network: No cost- and labor-intensive air conditioning and surveillance technology in the technical rooms and no technical failure of local components.
For Steinfurt, euromicron planned expansion of the already laid empty pipes and fiber-optic connections to create a powerful network. “Our experience in project management and building fiber-optic networks from the large FTTH/B lighthouse projects in Germany helped us implement economically sensible routing in areas that have not been connected up,” summarizes euromicron systems’ Managing Director. The establishment of technical rooms with passive technology that is now underway in the various parts of the town and blowing in further fiber-optic cables into the empty pipes can create flexible prerequisites for fulfilling a wide range of different customer requirements.
Stadtwerke Steinfurt is proactively optimizing its municipality’s infrastructure: “In particular, our town’s companies can leverage the wide range of opportunities offered by a broadband connection that have usually only been able to be provided in cities up to now. As a result, we give Steinfurt a genuine competitive edge as a place to live and do business,” states Rolf Echelmeyer.
Contact:
euromicron Broadband Initiative
Dr. Petra Hesselbarth
Phone +49 – (0)201-649 122 0, fttx [at] euromicron.de
euromicron AG is an all-round solution provider for communications, data and security networks. Its network infrastructures integrate voice, video and data transport wirelessly, via copper cable and by means of fiber-optic technologies. euromicron builds its leading applications, such as e-health, security, control or surveillance systems, on the basis of these network infrastructures.
Founded on its expertise as a developer and producer of fiber-optic components, euromicron AG is a strongly growing, highly profitable group that is listed on the stock market, has a medium-sized character and focuses on operational growth, integration and further market penetration, internationalization and expansion.