Today Telecom Italia disclosed the results obtained in the Province of Bergamo where, thanks to the activation of broadband services in 116 municipalities, the ‘digital divide’ was totally eliminated.
During the meeting with the Province of Bergamo and Confindustria Bergamo (the provincial confederation of industries), Telecom Italia highlighted its major infrastructural developments of the last two years that allowed the company to guarantee almost 100% coverage of the area, connecting to the broadband network approximately 125,000 citizens living in the 116 municipalities of the province that were still uncovered by Adsl, equal to 48% of the territory.
The Adsl coverage activities fall under the Anti-Digital Divide Project of the Region of Lombardy launched in 2011 and recently concluded which, thanks to the agreement signed with the local authorities provided broadband connectivity to the municipalities that were still uncovered. In particular, Telecom Italia signed a MoU with the Province of Bergamo to promote administrative streamlining and the use of low environmental impact digging techniques in compliance with the objectives stated in the activities programme aimed at minimizing any inconvenience to citizens due to the digging required to lay fiber-optics cables, and at reducing the cost of works. Moreover, it started negotiating agreements with the Mountain communities for the complete coverage of the whole territory.
Moreover, in the city of Bergamo, Telecom Italia completed the fiber-optics coverage of the modern districts of the city (lower Bergamo) thanks to a series of innovative agreements with the Municipality of Bergamo which allowed TI to use the public lighting infrastructure to extend fiber optics to some areas of the city, and it signed an agreement with ATB to use the trail of the city cable car to provide ultra-broadband connectivity to ‘upper Bergamo’, the ancient part of the city. Thanks to this level of infrastructure, the sale of the new “Ultra Internet Fibra” services dedicated to both citizens and businesses has already started.
In the mobile segment, the coverage of the whole territory with 4G LTE technology allowed Telecom Italia to provide the city of Bergamo with an ultra-broadband network.
During the meeting, Gianni Moretto, North-West Open Access Manager at Telecom Italia, commented: “Thanks to the Anti-Digital Divide Project, Telecom Italia has just concluded the works to eliminate the digital divide in the whole Province of Bergamo. We covered 116 municipalities with Adsl for approximately 125,000 citizens. Non only that, we already covered the whole city of Bergamo with ultra-broadband connectivity to prove that Telecom Italia strongly believes that the support of the territory has to go through the development of latest generation telecommunication infrastructures”.
Bergamo, March 4, 2014
