The TIM Group, through FiberCop, and iliad have signed an agreement to develop the Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) access market. The parties have in fact defined iliad’s participation in the co-investment project on the network of FiberCop, the Group company that creates the fibre optic secondary access network up to homes.
iliad’s endorsement of the co-investment offer – which the TIM Group implements through FiberCop – follows that of other national operators, such as Fastweb and the one being finalised with Tiscali, and confirms the validity of FiberCop’s investment plan, which ensures FTTH coverage for 75% of the grey and black areas of the country by 2025. TIM will also offer iliad access to the primary fiber network.
The agreement confirms iliad’s commitment to making investments in order to contribute to the digitisation of the country and offer high quality connectivity with simple and transparent offers.
For TIM, the arrangement reached confirms the effectiveness of the co-investment model. This model allows all interested operators to participate in the development of optical fibre in Italy within a framework of infrastructural competition which will see the digital divide overcome faster at national level. Moreover, it will enable the migration of households and businesses to ultrabroadband connections with speeds of over 1 Gigabit per second.
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FiberCop is an infrastructural company controlled by TIM (58%) together with KKR Infrastructure (37.5%) and Fastweb (4.5%) and its objective is the digitisation of the country by deploying Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) fibre optic connections.
FiberCop operates on the basis of a co-investment model and is the first case in Europe to see the new European Electronic Communications Code applied at national scale.
The company provides operators with fibre optic passive access services and advanced services, operating with maximum efficiency and protecting people and the environment.
FiberCop has a network asset that already provides UBB connections to over 93% of fixed lines thanks to FTTC and FTTH technologies and will continue to develop FTTH coverage with a connection speed of over 1 Gigabit. The aim is to provide coverage to 75% of households in grey and black areas by 2025.
The aim of the transaction is to make a critical contribution to the reduction of the digital divide in Italy, speeding up the switch of customers from copper to fibre.
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iliad is the operator that has revolutionized the mobile market in Italy since its debut in 2018 with offers that combine quality and transparency, and it has a proprietary network infrastructure in Italy. iliad guarantees a 99.6% coverage of the population using 4G technology, and an ever-increasing 5G network available in the main Italian cities. iliad has surpassed the threshold of 3,000 points of sale and its distribution network is made up of 21 iliad Stores, over 800 iliad Corners (including the Simbox distributed through large-scale retailing), over 1,500 iliad Express and more than 650 iliad Points. The mobile operator belongs to the iliad Group, the sixth largest mobile operator in Europe and parent company of Free. As of 30 June 2021, iliad Italia had over 7,8 million subscribers.
Rome, 9 August 2021
