Telecom Italia broadband customer numbers exceed 4 million at the end of 2004. In 2005 high-speed Internet coverage to be rolled out to nine out of ten Italians.
At no extra charge minimum speeds to be doubled for home and business subscribers to Telecom Italia's flat-rate package. Some subscription fees reduced by €28 from €64.95 to €36.95. By mid-March all flat-rate customers will have 1.2 megabit per second access. By the end of 2005 approximately 91% of the Italian population will have ADSL coverage.
Wholesale offering so that alternative carriers can replicate the service for their own customers.
The new 1.2 megabit speed makes it possible to download an MP3 file in less than 30 seconds.
Less than a year after Telecom Italia first uprated its basic ADSL speed, from February 1 Telecom Italia is doubling its basic broadband connection speed from 640 Kbps to 1.2 Megabits per second.
Bandwidth is being increased for residential ADSL customers on the €36.95 Alice Flat tariff and for business customers. Customers who were previously on the 1.2 Mbps Alice Mega tariff will see their monthly subscription fees reduced €28 from the current €64.95 to €36.95.
Automatically and at no extra cost, by mid-March all broadband clients currently on the 640 Kbps Flat package will be upgraded to 1.2 megabits per second downstream and 256 Kbps upstream.
Telecom Italia’s uprated broadband speeds are part of its ongoing policy to promote broadband application evolution. Telecom Italia now offers broadband coverage to almost the entire Italian population. In 2004 the company achieved the highest rates of broadband growth among residential customers in Europe. As at December 31, 2004 the company supplied 4,010,000 domestic broadband accesses, a 100% increase on a year earlier.
In 2005 Telecom Italia is planning to roll out broadband coverage to 91% of the population.
Higher access speeds enhance the quality and usability of current broadband applications. As well as providing better value, greater bandwidth makes it possible to use the Internet and web content in new and different ways. Web surfers with an always-on broadband connection will notice a big difference. At 1.2 Mbps, it takes less than 30 seconds to download an MP3 file. Netsurfers will benefit from higher sound quality, enjoy high-definition video streaming, and be more in control of real-time instant messaging and e-mail.
Telecom Italia has prepared corresponding wholesale packages to enable other carriers to offer similar packages to their own customers.
Alice Flat customers will receive e-mail notification to their Alice Posta inbox once the 1.2 Mbps speed upgrade has been completed.
Higher connection speeds will help sports, film and music fans to get even more out of Rosso Alice, the Telecom Italia broadband portal accessible to all broadband users. Rosso Alice recently started streaming live video broadcasts of matches played by 26 Italian football teams – including Inter, Juventus, AC Milan and Roma – in the Serie A TIM and Serie B TIM divisions. Content is available on the http://www.rossoalice.it/ site.
Launched by Telecom Italia in March 2004, Rosso Alice registered 2,525,000 unique browsers (who connected to the site at least once) in November 2004, and a total of 67,700,000 pageviews (an average of 2,260,000 pageviews per day).
A nationwide press, poster and Internet advertising campaign will be launched on February 6 to publicize this latest Telecom Italia initiative.
Milan, January 31, 2005