SWU TeleNet partners Alca-Lu for 50Mbps broadband pilot project

German regional network operator SWU TeleNet has started to deploy a high speed broadband network in 14 districts of Ulm in South Germany, in association with French-US vendor Alcatel-Lucent. According to a report on the FTTH Council Europe’s website, the rollout forms part of the ‘Internet-Offensive 2012’ initiative, under which the rural region of Ulm is preparing to meet and surpass the targets of the European Commission’s Digital Agenda. The agenda aims to provide every European citizen with 30Mbps broadband by 2020. By the end of 2013 around 12,000 households in the Ulm region will be connected to the new high speed broadband network, which is based on both copper (VDSL2) and fibre (GPON) technologies and supports download speeds of up to 50Mbps. ‘We are pleased with the successful launch of our broadband pilot project in Jungingen,’ commented Andreas Kovi, managing director of SWU TeleNet, adding: ‘Further municipalities will follow, leveraging the products and support from Alcatel-Lucent. From the very beginning we have adopted the open network model. It enables service providers to offer attractive services, such as e-health or IPTV, to a much wider target audience.’