FTTH for 258 more Italian cities
September 19, 2017
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italian fibre-optic company Open Fiber has expanded its existing cooperation with telecom operator Wind Tre for the development of FTTH broadband services.
The agreement, already active in an initial 13 cities, has now been extended to a further 258 Italian cities included in the so-called clusters A and B (the areas of the country in which lives 60 per cent of the Italian population).
This partnership, valid until 2024, foresees the progressive migration of Wind Tre’s fixed network customers to the Open Fiber network. Thanks to FTTH technology, some 10 million real estate units, including homes and businesses, will benefit from speeds of up to 1 Gbps both in download and upload.
Meanwhile, rival operator TIM has signed an agreement with Utilitalia (the federation of national utility companies), for the use of pipes, ducts and public lighting networks of more than 500 local utility operators for the development of ultra-fast broadband networks. As a result, the work to lay the fibre will be reduced considerably, along with the consequent disturbance to locals and traffic, minimising social-environmental impacts.
TIM’s fibre network already covers 71 per cent of Italy, with more than 17 million homes in around 2,100 municipalities.