The Open Fiber plan continues to cover the national territory with optical fiber. The latest announcement is of an agreement with the Municipality of Riccione to create an agreement an ultra-broadband infrastructure made entirely of fiber optics, in FTTH mode capable of navigating up to 10 Gigabits per second (Fiber To The Home, the fiber that arrives directly inside homes and offices). The works will start from the fiber optic plant, and then continue towards the other districts and be completed within 20 months. The ultra-fast network will be 137 km long (more than half of the new network will be made up of existing cable ducts and underground or overhead network infrastructures) for an investment of around 5 million euros for Open Fiber. “The investment in Riccione is aimed at make a real one digital highway completely new and performing. We thank the municipal administration for its cooperation and we are committed to carrying out minimally invasive works quickly", commented Vito Magliaro, Head of the Open Fiber Emilia-Romagna network and operations.
Meanwhile, in the morning, the president of Open Fiber Franco Bassanini spoke at a conference held by the Sole 24 Ore, who spoke about how to cover the gray areas, i.e. not the white ones which are the most remote and out of the market, but those where there is already a network operator but a connection that is not yet very fast: “We are in a moment of change in the shareholding structure – commented Bassanini referring to the new governance of Open Fiber -, which will be completed in a few weeks. We are working, in full agreement with the new shareholders, on a new plan that will allow rrespond to fiber demand in gray areas, which correspond to about a third of Italian homes and a third of businesses not covered by Open Fiber, a company that was initially created to cover cities. Then unfortunately we entered all the white areas, having won all the races. We expect to cover the gray areas not covered by the PNRR tender".
Bassanini also highlighted that there are two critical points: “I bottlenecks on skilled labor and I'm not just talking about technicians, but fiber splicing excavators. The problem concerns not only us, but Telecom Italia and Enel. The other theme is that of bottlenecks in the supply chain, semi-finished products, raw materials and strategic products. This causes a difficulty in investing for a group like Open Fiber which has to deal with a demand that has been sequestered for years". Bassanini then said that if the two problems are resolved, “we will actually be able to implement the Colao Plan, which envisages a 'high capacity' infrastructure throughout the country by 2026 to bring at least a gig. An objective that anticipates by a few years what is foreseen in the community documents”. Finally, the president of Open Fiber called for the use of vouchers that favor the diffusion of optical fiber. "Europe itself - he concluded - is very much in favor of the concentration of vouchers on future technologies, not on those of the past which are based on copper".
