New development contract signed to accelerate delivery of ultrabroadband networks in the regions and boost the dissemination of innovative services. The investment will also be used to finance an industrial research project in the Italtel production plant in Carini (Palermo).
Invitalia, Telecom Italia and Italtel have signed a Development Contract worth a total of 71 million euros to speed up the development of ultrabroadband networks and promote the use of innovative services in Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily. The investment also envisages an experimental research and development programme aimed at designing and creating software products for ultrabroadband networks in the Italtel industrial plant in Carini (Palermo).
Telecom Italia is investing 48 million euros to extend the existing networks in the territory of the four regions involved to build an ultrabroadband network infrastructure based on the development of the LTE mobile network and the new generation FTTC and FTTH network.
Italtel is investing 23 million euros, composed of: 1.7 million to extend the Carini site in Palermo that will be developing new software products for the virtualisation of the networks using the Cloud Computing paradigm, and 21.3 million to design and develop software products for ultrabroadband networks (more specifically, for the edge, service and virtualisation network levels).
The plan presented by Telecom Italia and Italtel is financed by Invitalia for 22 million euros, 14.4 milion to Telecom Italia and 7.6 million to Italtel.
For Invitalia Chief Executive Officer, Domenico Arcuri, “this agreement goes some way towards bridging the infrastructure gap in Southern Italy in the spread of ultrabroadband, which has been one of Invitalia’s objectives for some time. The further development of telecommunications and services will bring undeniable growth for businesses, institutions and individuals in a territory in which an intervention of this kind is increasingly urgent.
Roberto Opilio, Head of Operations at Telecom Italia, stated: “It is our mission to guide the digital development and transformation of the Country. The new industrial plan envisages 10 billion euros of investment in Italy over the three year period 2015-2017, half of which earmarked for innovative technologies alone. In Campania, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily we are heavily engaged in creating new generation infrastructure, and are already making innovative services available to families, businesses and government bodies, thus contributing to support and develop the territory. The Development Contract is a further initiative that confirms the importance of public-private partnership and the synergies between industrial groups”.
Stefano Pileri, Chief Executive Officer of Italtel, commented: “With the Cloud and the Internet of Things, ultrabroadband networks are the technologies of the digital revolution. Today work is already underway on connections and technologies with speeds of 1000 Mbps, and this makes it even more essential to invest in the spread of ultrabroadband. This new contract represents a great opportunity for Southern Italy , and for Italy as a whole, to speed up the process of digitalisation and the spread of innovative services. For Italtel, the importance of this project is linked to the possibility of leveraging our research in the most advanced areas of telecommunications, and to the major opportunity it offers to our Palermo R&D site.”
