📋 Tender Overview
The Federal Minister for Digital Affairs and Transport Dr. Volker Wissing presented a funding decision for a new mobile phone mast in a location in the Ahr Valley region that was affected by the 2021 flood. With around 890000 euros the BMDV is supporting the construction of a cell phone mast by Vantage Towers AG in the municipality of Lind in the district of Ahrweiler which will be used by Deutsche Telekom Telefnica and Vodafone in the future. The mast is intended to supply the Linder district of Obliers where there has previously been no mobile phone reception.The area in and around Obliers that the new cell tower will serve is 190 hectares the equivalent of 260 football pitches. The mountain-valley geographical location is a particular challenge for mobile phone coverage. Also because of the sparse population a private expansion is uneconomical. As a result of the heavy rain a year and a half ago the district was flooded and cut off from an important supply road. The lack of mobile phone reception made communication between the residents significantly more difficult.The mobile phone funding program of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport BMDV is an offer to market players to enable coverage in uneconomical areas. The mobile communications infrastructure company MIG commissioned with the implementation will check all white spots to see whether or not there will be expansion in the coming years. To date the MIG has published a total of 1273 market investigation procedures 972 of which have already been evaluated. According to this subsidized expansion cannot be ruled out in 704 areas because the network operators are not planning any commercial expansion.Network operators property owners and tower companies need to work together to enable funding in these areas. MIG actively accompanies and moderates this process on site. The first two grant notifications were handed over in 2022. In Lind the third location is now being promoted. With the largely completed phase of market exploration the number of calls for funding will now continue to rise.In order to also accelerate the acquisition of land MIG has now negotiated framework or model agreements with the Bavarian State Forests the Lower Saxony State Forests the German Farmers Association and the German Association of Towns and Municipalities. Negotiations on further corresponding contracts are still ongoing.
