Telecom Italia today presented the results achieved in the province of Brescia, where the digital divide has been completely eliminated, bringing broadband technology to whole area of Brescia thanks to the work undertaken in 105 municipalities where the service was unavailable. During the meeting attended by Corrado Ghirardelli, Councillor for Innovation, Technologies, Information Systems and E-Government of the Province of Brescia, and Gianni Moretto, Telecom Italia's North West Open Access Manager, the Company illustrated the major infrastructure work carried out over the past two years, achieving almost 100% coverage of the area by connecting the broadband network to around 141,000 inhabitants of the province's 105 municipalities who hadn't yet been reached by ADSL, equivalent to 51% of the territory. ADLS coverage activities are part of the Lombardy Regions' Anti Digital Divide Project launched in 2011 and recently completed, under which, thanks to an agreement with the institutions, work was carried out in municipalities that had no broadband connection. In particular, Telecom Italia signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Province of Brescia to encourage administrative simplification and use low environmental impact excavation techniques to achieve the objectives set by the activity programme and reduce the inconvenience caused to citizens by the excavations required to lay the optical fibre cables, as well as the cost of the work, and reached agreements with Mountain Communities to enable coverage across the whole area.
Furthermore, Telecom Italia has now completed its optical fibre coverage of the city of Brescia and the infrastructure has already allowed the company to market its new “Optical Fibre Ultra Internet” service for households and businesses.
On the mobile front too, Telecom Italia has provided Brescia with an ultrabroadband network thanks to 4G technology coverage of the whole area.
“The Province of Brescia – commented Councillor Corrado Ghirardelli – has been engaged for years in pursuing its objective of bringing broadband technology to the whole province. It has built an important and fundamental relationship with its partner Telecom Italia, which was able to install additional sections of optical fibre, following a competitive bidding process in which it was involved, thus allowing broadband services to be provided to additional municipalities where the services were limited or unavailable. Of course we don't intend to stop here.
We intend to continue with these enhancements, extending the broadband technology offer and improving the quality of the service offered by the Province of Brescia, via the local service centre (CST), throughout the province. We are grateful to our technology partner Telecom Italia in this venture and look forward to this relationship continuing for the new challenges ahead."
During the meeting, Gianni Moretto, Telecom Italia's North West Open Access Manager commented: ”Telecom Italia has just completed the work aimed at eliminating the digital divide throughout the Province of Brescia, as part of Lombardy's Anti Digital Divide Project. The work carried out 105 municipalities has brought ADSL technology to around 141,000 inhabitants. Furthermore, we have already provided ultrabroadband coverage throughout Brescia as a demonstration that Telecom Italia truly believes that supporting local communities also requires the development of next-generation telecommunication infrastructure.
Brescia, March 26, 2014
