There is a bit of irony here: down in the valley in bad staffelstein, modern fiber-optic technology is currently being installed in order to be able to offer a high-speed internet connection throughout the town in a pilot project – and the first public hot spot in the town will be built a good distance away: at a comparatively remote location, the staffelberg. And this is made possible by a very old technical device, which is currently no longer used.
Ulrich schmitt, local representative in romansthal, drew mayor jurgen kohmann’s (CSU) attention to an old power line that runs up the mountain and is no longer used: "i knew from my earlier work at bayernwerk that it still existed."
Measurements show that it is still intact and can be used as a connection for internet data transmission. The performance is not outstanding – but sufficient. And what is particularly good for the town is that it will only incur minor costs, if any. "We’re still sorting out the contractual details, but it looks like bayernwerk will take over everything.", says kohmann. The service is free of charge for users. The small transmitter is to be placed in the klause.
This new connection may also open up another option: the city wanted to install a panoramic camera on the staffelberg. More sites could be added in the city itself. "A camera on the staffelberg is a priority for us." Now they want to find out if such a device could be tied over the hot-spot.
So far, there is only public w-lan in the cashier area of the obermain-therme in bad staffelstein. But the city is also thinking about setting up such an offer, for example in the area of the town hall and at the railroad station. "But we want to wait until the expansion with fiber optic cable is completed", says kohmann. Then the hot-spot could be connected with more efficiency. There will be no such thing on the staffelberg due to the copper pipeline. But who’s going to want to stream a video on their cell phone with that view?.