Fiber first

In 2019, several organizations started working together to set up an ambitious project: a floating dairy farm right in the city of Rotterdam, the first of its kind in the world.

It was a common project on which DELTA Fiber, several suppliers and the municipality all worked together. Fast and reliable internet was indispensable because the partners needed to be able to rapidly collect, process, send and receive large quantities of data on the milk robots, cows and energy use. You could say it was a floating lab.

Today, this lab has become a well-known dairy brand in the Netherlands for which animal welfare, circularity, sustainability and innovation are extremely important. The Floating Farm produces healthy food close to city dwellers, which is why they also call it a 'transfarmation'. For the Floating Farm it is important to prevent food losses, reduce food transport and improve food quality. They also pay attention to animal welfare, circularity, sustainability and innovation.

The aim is to bring the farm back into the city as part of a clean, livable and conscious urban transformation. The Floating Farm also stands for circular farming: a large part of their cows' diet consists of organic residual flows from the city. Thus the cows are fed spent grain from a number of Rotterdam breweries, bran from Schiedam mills, grass from nearby sports fields and potato peels from a local processor.

The restaurant at DELTA Fiber's head office in Schiedam offers several dairy products from the Floating Farm including yoghurt, milk and buttermilk.

Consumers often do not realize how many of their smart home solutions depend on reliable connectivity. Ten years ago robot vacuum cleaners did not yet exist. Today, nearly three quarters of Dutch people aged 12 years or older own one or more smart devices that are connected to the internet and exchange data with other devices in their homes. This is also referred to as the 'Internet of Things' or IoT.

Domotics is the integration of technology and services for a better quality of living. It allows people to manage their home automation system via their PC, smartphone or tablet. For example they can monitor camera images from their front door via the internet and speak with a delivery person using their mobile phone. They can switch their lights on in the evening when they are on vacation so that it looks as if they are at home. Or they can save energy costs by lowering the room temperature in their home when they are at the office and at night.

According to Statistics Netherlands* smart meters for water, gas or electricity are especially widely used in the Netherlands. In 2023 one in five households in the Netherlands had a smart household appliance. That is a clear increase compared to the year before, when it was 14 per cent**. In 2022 around 7% of Dutch households owned a robot vacuum cleaner, which equates to some 560,000 households. More and more household devices need the internet to function properly, making internet capacity increasingly important.

Good and stable Wi-Fi is essential for smart home devices and domotics. DELTA Fiber enhances its customers' Wi-Fi system using its 'to the top of the roof' installation, thus contributing to a better quality of living for its customers.

* Source: CBS 'ICT use of households and individuals 2020'
** Source: 'Annual smart Home Monitor' from Multiscope, 2022

Fast and reliable internet is becoming increasingly indispensable for various parts of our society. DELTA branch manager Ed de Vries explains how DELTA Fiber's fiber network contributes to the healthcare sector.

Ed de Vries: “Many telecom providers offer a 'one-size-fits-all' solution for TV and internet. In our modern society, residents of healthcare institutions place increasingly higher demands on these services. We offer the residents of healthcare institutions such as Philadelphia and 's Heeren Loo complete freedom of choice and flexibility in purchasing digital services such as TV and internet. In this way we provide optimal care for both residents and care providers.”

Furthermore, the use of smart glasses has become a daily occurrence in the Dutch healthcare sector. Smart glasses enable medical specialists to see through the eyes of healthcare providers. DELTA Fiber ensures that such images are sent in high quality over a superfast network. If necessary, a medical specialist can be called in to watch along live on a tablet; this may be a psychologist who wants to observe misunderstood behavior or a doctor who wants to inspect a wound. Ed de Vries: “It's great that we can contribute to healthcare innovation in this way.”

Of course this requires fast data connections but according to Ed de Vries that is not a problem. “The superfast fiber network that we have constructed is ideal for this type of innovative solutions where you need to send a lot of data from multiple locations 24/7.”

This means that patients can stay in their own room during a consultation, without a medical team around their bed. Moreover, it saves specialists time because they no longer need to do visits. That really adds value. Ed de Vries: “I'm proud that we enable healthcare innovation this way. We build the rails with our fiber networks; our customers then drive their high-speed train over them.”