Telekom has repaired almost all connections after July floods

Large sections of the fixed-network lines in the federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate were destroyed in the environmental disaster of the July 2021 floods. As Telekom now reports, almost all connections have now been repaired. The older copper network has been partially replaced by modern fiber optics in the process.

July floods: 97 percent of connections repaired by the end of the year

By the end of 2021, Telekom aims to have repaired 97 percent of the total of 103,000 fixed-network lines destroyed by the July floods in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate. This the company now announced.

Of the remaining 3,000 connections, one-third are to be repaired as early as the first quarter of 2022, but this would not be possible for around 2,000 connections. The reason for this is that infrastructure such as roads, bridges and houses have been completely destroyed.

Affected customers have therefore been supplied by Deutsche Telekom with mobile communications-based products as replacements on request, the statement continues. At the same time, construction of a modern FTTH (Fiber-To-The-Home) network has begun in the particularly hard-hit flood areas, where the floods caused lasting damage to the existing copper network.

FTTH roll-out at Telekom

“In 2022, we will connect a total of around 40,000 households and company locations there directly with fiber optics,” says Walter Goldenits, Managing Director of Technology at Telekom Deutschland. In the following year, a further 25,000 FTTH connections are to be added in the affected NRW municipalities alone.

In Schleiden in the Eifel region, the first customers will be provided with their new fiber-optic connection before Christmas 2021, the statement continues. Ground has already been broken in other municipalities, too. Innovative solutions are also being used. In Euskirchen-Schweinheim, for example, a new, minimally invasive laying method is being used for the expansion, which saves a considerable amount of time.