Telecom Italia is now building its next-generation fibre-optic ultra-broadband network in . The announcement was made today at a ceremony attended by Mayor of Turin Sergio Chiamparino, President of the Provincial Government Antonio Saitta, Piedmont Regional Government Councillor for Labour Claudia Porchietto, Telecom Italia CEO Franco Bernabè, and Telecom Italia Technology & Operations Manager Oscar Cicchetti.
This venture is part of Telecom Italia’s fibre investment plan to build the next generation access network (NGAN) and provide fibre connections in six Italian cities by the end of 2010, 13 cities by the end of 2012, and 50% population coverage (138 cities) by the end of 2018.
“We are very pleased to have begun work on the new fibre-optic network in ,” says Telecom Italia’s CEO Franco Bernabè. “Turin is a major innovation hub and home to TiLab, the Group’s research facility. Building ultra-broadband infrastructure and fostering the take-up of services over this network will be a key driver of economic growth locally and nationally. With its networks and services, Telecom Italia is keen to significantly boost sustainable economic growth in the city of and improve people’s quality of life.”
From next week, an initial group of Telecom Italia customers will be able to try out 100 Megabit per second connections that make existing broadband services perform much better. The connections also lay the foundations for a new generation of applications including HDTV, telepresence, business-oriented cloud computing, and “smart city” services such as security, local monitoring, infomobility, and sensor networks for remote environmental monitoring.
By the end of 2011, Telecom Italia will have cabled up 40,000 properties to fibre in ’s central and S. Rita districts. The figure will rise to more than 55,000 properties by the end of 2012. Under the development plan, the main areas of the municipality will be connected up by the end of 2016, by which time the next-generation fibre-optic network will reach 500,000 properties, corresponding to around 900,000 citizens. Marketing of 100 Megabit services over the new fibre-optic network will commence once trials have been completed, and after the offer has been given the green light by the Regulatory Authority.
The next-generation access network is being developed alongside the existing network, and will lead to a completely upgraded network designed for the optimized carriage of different types of traffic (data, video, voice, etc.) and their very different bandwidth requirements.
Existing infrastructure will be leveraged to lay fibre optic cable. Where necessary, highly innovative low environmental impact digging techniques and tools will be deployed, in compliance with a Memorandum of Understanding signed today by the and Telecom Italia. The protocol follows on from an agreement reached recently between the National Association of Italian Municipalities (ANCI) and Telecom Italia, and allows for the use of low environmental impact laying techniques (in general “mini-trenches”) to minimize work time, site occupation, drilling, earth removal, damage to road surfaces and, as a result, road repair times. Mini trenches only require excavations a few centimetres wide and 30 cm deep. This technique can reduce socio-environmental costs (citizen and public service inconvenience) by as much as 80%, workplace accidents by 67%, and the amount of time required to build telecommunications infrastructure by 80%.
Turin, 10 December 2010