Italian service providers call for single national FTTH network

Italian service providers Fastweb, Vodafone and Wind have teamed up to propose a single fibre network infrastructure for the country.

The CEOs of the three companies, Carsten Schloter, Paolo Bertoluzzo an Luigi Gubitosi, have asked the Italian government to set in motion a process for the creation of a single fibre company. The three have also launched a shared-access fibre network in a test area in Rome. They aim to roll this out to 7,000 households by July this year.

Fastweb, Vodafone and Wind are backing the creation of a single point-to-point FTTH network to cover the country’s 15 largest cities within five years, based on a total investment of about €2.5bn by all providers and institutions involved in the project. The three companies did not reveal specific investment commitments of their own. A second phase of the plan would see the network possibly extended to towns with populations greater than 20,000, covering about 50% of the Italian population, with a total investment of about €8.5bn.

The three have said the project would be open to all public and private entities, including Telecom Italia. However, they said that their commitment would be dependant on a series of conditions including the stabilisation of the current local loop unbundling fees paid to Telecom Italia.

The shared network would be made available to all providers, with the sales and marketing of services to end customers provided by each individual provider.