Telecom Italia announced that it is starting up its next-generation fibre-optic ultra-broadband network in Venice, at an event attended by the Mayor of Venice Giorgio Orsoni, Veneto Region Councillor for the Economy and Development, Research and Innovation Marialuisa Coppola, President of the Venice Biennale Paolo Baratta, Telecom Italia CEO Franco Bernabè, Telecom Italia Technology & Operations Manager , and the director of the Telecom Italia Future Centre, Roberto Saracco.
This venture is part of Telecom Italia’s fibre investment plan for building the next generation access network (NGAN) in order to provide fibre connections in nine Italian cities by the end of 2011, 13 cities by the end of 2012, and 50% population coverage (138 cities) by the end of 2018.
Telecom Italia CEO Franco Bernabè stated: “Telecom Italia is keen to drive innovation in local areas across , at a time when local system competitiveness is increasingly associated with networking, developing new outlets and new economies. Building ultra-broadband infrastructure, and, most importantly, widespread take-up of the services enabled by this infrastructure, can act as a significant driver of sustainable economic growth in , and improve quality-of-life for citizens.”
From next week, an initial group of Telecom Italia customers will be able to try out 100 Megabit per second connections that significantly enhance the performance of existing broadband services. These links also pave the way 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 connect three thousand properties to fibre in the centre of , Mestre and Carpenedo, rising to more than nine thousand properties by the end of 2012. Under the development plan, the main areas of the municipality will all be connected by the end of 2016, by which time the next-generation fibre-optic network will reach around 140 thousand properties, corresponding to around 270 thousand citizens.
Marketing of 100 Megabit services over the new fibre-optic network will commence once trials have been completed, and after the offer is 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 highly different bandwidth requirements.
To give an initial boost to this new infrastructure, Telecom Italia and the municipal government today signed a preliminary agreement to promote the construction of an NGN network in the city of Venice, evaluate synergies in the use of infrastructure available to each party, use innovative techniques to reduce work time and cost, and ensure low levels of environmental impact.
Under the agreement, representatives from both signatories will sit on a Joint Technical Committee that is specifically responsible for handling all installations-related activities concerning building of the NGN network, including, where possible, the use of existing civil infrastructure.
Venice, 1 February 2011
