Telecom Italia is beginning to roll out its next generation fibre-optic network (NGAN) in Pescara, offering innovative services to consumers and enterprise. The news was announced today at an event attended by Municipality of Pescara Councillor for Innovation Eugenio Seccia, and Telecom Italia’s Head of Abruzzo and Molise Line Access Operations Luciano Montaldo.
This initiative is part of Telecom Italia’s national NGAN network development plan using FTTCab (Fibre to the cabinet) technology. The network will be extended to a hundred cities in Italy by the end of 2014, covering around 6 million properties, corresponding to 25% of the population.
By the end of next year, Telecom Italia will be laying around 120 km of fibre optics in Pescara, linking up more than 390 roadside cabinets equipped with next-generation electronics. The network will cover around 75 thousand people and some seven thousand business users. For the most part, the fibre will be laid in existing cable ducts; just 35 km of new excavations will be required. Work will be carried out across the city, starting in the Zanni, Centro and Tiburtina districts, before moving on to the Stadio and Colli areas.
Over the next few months, the people of Pescara will be able to start using ultra-broadband connections at speeds of between a minimum of 30 megabits per second and a maximum of 60-80 megabits per second. Connections at these speeds make existing broadband services perform much better. The connections also pave the way for a new generation of applications such as HDTV, telepresence, cloud computing for enterprise, and services for local government to implement a “smart city” approach to services such as security, local monitoring, infomobility, and sensor networks for remote environmental monitoring.
FTTCab architecture requires laying fibre optics to roadside cabinets. Compared with other solutions, this approach offers the benefits of faster infrastructure implementation, causing less inconvenience for people and offering greater coverage for the same investment.
To give an initial boost to the NGAN network and minimize the impact of work in the city, Telecom Italia and the municipal government today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the use of innovative techniques that will make it possible to reduce the length of time the work will take and minimize costs, while at the same time ensuring a low-level of environmental impact.
The “mini trench” digging techniques that are being adopted ensure the safety of all infrastructure work carried out. This groundbreaking excavation and covering technique requires excavations just a few centimetres wide and thirty centimetres deep. The technique minimizes inconvenience to citizens and public services by as much as 80%, cuts workplace accidents by 67%, and slashes the amount of time required to build telecommunications infrastructure by 80%.
Pescara, 13 November 2012
