Covid-19: TIM’s commitment

Today more than ever, our infrastructure and the work of our people is proving essential in keeping us together at a time when the virus is forcing us into physical separation. It’s a challenge affecting all TIM people, transforming how we work, minimising travel and ensuring observance of the highest safety standards: without stopping, to help our customers cope with this emergency, and with a particular focus on those in the greatest difficulty.

Emergency support initiatives

Delivery of hardware and SIM cards to support organisations and institutions involved in the pandemic

We have supported hospitals, prisons, youth detention centres and solidarity communities. We delivered:

1600 kits (device + SIM) to prisons
35 devices to youth detention centres
Around 1000 kits (device + SIM) to hospitals in Lombardy, Lazio and Marche. Another 400 kits delivered to 11 other regions. The devices came with technological aids for deaf patients.
200 SIM cards to the community of Sant’Egidio

Torino City Love

TIM signed up to the digital campaign for solidarity and innovation ‘Torino City Love’, making innovative digital solutions available to healthcare institutions, families and the elderly free of charge through the Torino City Lab platform. The service is carried out thanks to TIM Open Labs’ Open Innovation ecosystem and involves start-ups selected by WCap (UGO and UFirst) and the collaboration of Cisco. The solutions developed include robots used for video calls between patients and their families at the Regina Margherita Children’s Hospital, Sant’Anna Hospital and the CasaOz home in Turin.

Psychological support hotline for citizens

In collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Health and the Italian Civil Protection Department, we set up a freephone number to provide psychological support for citizens, available every day from 8 a.m. to midnight on 800 833 833.

Listening desk for doctors

In collaboration with Emergenza Sorrisi and the Italian Psychiatry Society, we set up a remote listening and support desk for doctors, nurses and healthcare workers on the toll-free number 800 042 999, available Monday to Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m.

Donations to the Italian Red Cross

We activated the solidarity number 45505 for donations to the Italian Red Cross.

Smart Working

More than half of TIM’s employees (around 36,000), including numerous call centre operators, have been working from home since the start of the pandemic, saving an estimated 162,774 tonnes in CO2 emissions.

We created brief informative videos on how to prevent infection, how coronavirus is transmitted, how to use PPE, etc.

TIM Brasil was the first operator in Brazil to convert its entire in-house call centre to remote working. In total, more than 10,000 TIM Brasil employees have participated in the Smart Working programme.

‘Coronavirus Emergency’ Donation

Fondazione TIM has allocated 1,000,000 euros, part of which was raised via a solidarity campaign involving more than 5,000 employees. 4 recipients were identified and each received a contribution of 250,000 euros.

San Raffaele Hospital in Milan
The CoRiS Health Research Consortium in Veneto
Spallanzani Hospital in Rome.
The IRCCS Fondazione ‘G. Pascale’ National Cancer Institute of Naples

Initiatives for schools and digital skills

Collaboration with Italian Universities for e-learning

We have signed over 20 agreements with leading Italian universities to provide 200,000 SIM cards and modems to students, aiming to make it easier for them to take their courses and use the universities’ digital services.

WeSchool

Over the period March-December 2020, when Italian schools were closed due to COVID-19, TIM made available WeSchool, a digital classroom platform powered by TIM which enables teachers to put their classroom online from their own smartphone, tablet or computer. For example, sharing materials, creating discussions, discussing content, managing group tasks, tests and exams, including a virtual classroom to provide lessons via video streaming. The platform was very successful: in one of the weeks most impacted by the emergency (4-10 May 2020) it was used by more than 2.5 million students, an increase of more than 30% compared to the pre-COVID average. In collaboration with WeSchool, through an online help desk we will also be providing technical and educational support to all teachers, students and parents who need help activating and using Google for Education tools.

Ditigal #LaScuolaContinua: a community to support teachers and headteachers

Created in response to the Italian Ministry of Education’s call for support in the COVID-19 crisis, #LaScuolaContinua is the initiative we became involved in along with Cisco, Google, IBM and WeSchool to support school system communities during the school closure period. Conceived by Ilaria Capua and promoted by the Copernicani Association with the methodological support of the Centro Studi Impara Digitale, the initiative aims to help maintain teaching activities with the support of digital tools and avoid millions of children being out of school for an indefinite period, thus threatening the outcome of the academic year. #LaScuolaContinua is a community which allows schools, headteachers and teachers to rely on one-stop support to help them utilise free platforms to create digital classrooms, share content, test learning and do remote video lessons, whatever technology the school wants to adopt or has already adopted.

“Maestri d’Italia” and the new Masterclasses for citizens and businesses

Through Operazione Risorgimento Digitale, from 14 April to 29 May we ran “Maestri d’Italia”, a huge online school accessible through streaming platforms which involved over 700,000 people, with a daily schedule structured around three modules:

Lessons from the “Italian Maestros” to explore the impact of digital technology on social and economic aspects.
Masterclasses, to learn how to use the internet and its resources
Edutainment for children, to learn digital skills through games

Since 16 June, a new cycle of Masterclasses has been launched in collaboration with Cisco, Manpower, Accenture and NTTData. Aimed at citizens and businesses, on issues of cybersecurity, job search, e-commerce, culture and digital tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic. After the summer break, Masterclasses resumed in September.

The Operazione Risorgimento Digitale initiative, which endorses the Manifesto for the Digital Republic promoted by the Ministry for Innovation, is being implemented in conjunction with the European Commission and the Italian State Police and it has obtained ANCI support. The initiative has brought 30 partners together and won the support of trade associations, the fourth sector and important players in the field of social innovation, such as Confindustria Digitale, Telefono Azzurro, Fondazione Mondo Digitale, Junior Achievement Italia, Generation and Italiacamp.

Health sector innovation initiatives

Through partnerships with public organisations and other private foundations, innovation competitions were promoted in the healthcare field, such as Innova per l’Italia, #EUvsVirus Hackathon and the COVID-19 Challenge.”.

Initiatives for customers

Individuals

Until the end of the pandemic, we will provide free voice traffic to consumer customers on the fixed network.
Customers on the mobile network will be able to access unlimited data traffic, on request either online or via the app.
With the ‘E-learning Card’, all prepaid mobile phone customers that have an active data offer can use the main remote learning platforms without limits of data traffic.
ADSL customers will be able to request an upgrade to fibre at no additional cost.
The ‘classic’ TIMVISION package will be free for all TIM fixed line customers throughout Italy.

Business

During the first wave of COVID-19, we offered TIM Work Smart free of charge for two months, across the whole of Italy.
We also offered an additional 100 gigabytes of data to all private and public business customers.
Web-based identification services to obtain a TIM ID (SPID digital identity) became free for all business customers until 30 June 2020.
We transformed the voice or ADSL line into fibre for business customers at the same price.
A set of services from the Digital Store were offered free of charge to business customers until 30 June, including Pronto Numero Verde, Video Live Chat and TIM SMS Professional services to send text messages to customers.
We offered G Suite TIM Edition, the solution from TIM, Google Cloud and Intesa SanPaolo, free of charge to manage smart working simply and securely.
Thanks to an agreement with UniCredit, TIM offered its business customers immediate access to the measures already put in place by UniCredit to support business liquidity and investment, both in its own emergency package and via the Italian Banking Association (ABI) and government initiatives.

National Digitalisation initiatives

Activation of new cabinets

In the period March-December 2020, we activated 18,000 new cabinets to provide Ultra BroadBand connectivity to people living in so-called ‘white’ areas, i.e. geographical areas not involved in public tenders for broadband infrastructure. As a result, Ultra Broadband connectivity has now reached around 3,250 municipalities, for a total of over 5,000 Italian municipalities and 5 million citizens.

Adjustment of network infrastructure

In order to cope with the significant increase in traffic recorded since the beginning of the pandemic (traffic reached a maximum of 90% on the fixed network and 45% on the mobile network), and to maintain service quality levels, we implemented a series of improvement actions that have significantly increased the available bandwidth compared to the situation pre-pandemic.

We set up a control room dedicated to monitoring network traffic and used transportable equipment to provide emergency mobile coverage, for example to Umberto I° Hospital in Enna.

Initiatives for Institutions

Carabinieri

We activated the Digital Training Platform for a total of 6,500 users.

Confindustria

We provided training support to the 230 employees working from home.

San Raffaele Hospital in Milan and ASST Mantova

Both facilities use Home Doctor, the remote medicine platform provided free of charge for the entire duration of the pandemic, which allows patients’ vital signs to be monitored without the need for hospitalisation.

Civil Protection

We activated the TIM Data Room to monitor hot topics, sentiment analysis and online users’ opinions. The platform allows daily reports to be sent to the Italian Civil Protection Department to support improvements to the effectiveness of its communication.
Just 15 hours after the onset of the pandemic, the Italian Civil Protection Department’s freephone number service was activated via a room at TIM's offices in Via della Boscaiola in Milan, with 72 workstations (now up to around 100) operational 24 hours a day.
We have also set up additional operations rooms to support the Italian Civil Protection Department.

Support for Emergency Services

We carried out monitoring activities and technical work to ensure continuity for emergency services (e.g. 112, 113, 115 and 118 and social services numbers).

Covid-19: TIM's commitment