The City Council has approved the draft agreement between the Municipality and Open Fiber for the construction of infrastructure and high-speed data networks in the municipal area. The agreement establishes the modalities of the works which will last 18 months from the start of the intervention. The direct investment of the company, jointly owned by Enel and the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and which operates with its own funds in 271 municipalities throughout Italy, is 9,6 million to wire 39 thousand real estate units throughout the city. A new high-tech infrastructure is, therefore, about to innervate the city of Cosenza which is, by its very nature, a city of connections, cultural and otherwise, which has always been open to innovation.
On the banks of the Crati, the latest generation of Open Fiber optic fiber is therefore ready to land, a telecommunications network capable of guaranteeing citizens and businesses access to the web with unprecedented services. The digital turning point is highlighted in the agreement reached between the Municipality and the company, an agreement that favors the creation of an infrastructure in FTTH (Fiber To The Home) mode, i.e. the optical fiber laid right inside the house) the only one able to return web connection speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second and latency of less than 5 milliseconds. The company led by the managing director Elisabetta Ripa has planned a direct investment of 9,6 million euros for Cosenza, own funds intended for the cabling of over 39 thousand real estate units. A total of 642 kilometers of optical fiber will envelop the city's neighborhoods, from the center to the suburbs. The agreement was sanctioned by the mayor Mario Occhiuto, the councilor for urban redevelopment Francesco Caruso, the Calabria regional manager of Open Fiber Roberto Renna and Luigi Lambiase, field manager of Open Fiber and contact person for the cabling works in Cosenza.
"The future construction - commented the Councilor for urban redevelopment Francesco Caruso - places the city of Cosenza at the forefront in the context of Italian cities and looks to the years to come with a view to improving services and the quality of life of citizens . The potential of this technological infrastructure is enormous and our Administration has been able to seize it on the fly, reconciling tradition with its vocation for innovation”.
During the works, both in the center and in the more peripheral areas, wherever possible, existing cable ducts and network infrastructures will be used to limit the impact of the excavations and any inconvenience to the community as much as possible. Even in Cosenza, as is already the case in construction sites open throughout Italy, the excavations will in any case be carried out favoring innovative methods with low environmental impact. The infrastructure will extend for 151 kilometres, 37 of which will be created through the reuse of overhead and underground networks already present in the city.
"A network entirely in optical fiber - highlighted the regional manager of Open Fiber Roberto Renna - thanks to its unprecedented performance in terms of speed and stability, allows you to enable future-proof services that benefit the entire community: the telemedicine, teleworking, distance education, Industry 4.0, home automation are just some of the possible examples. An opportunity that represents a fundamental step towards the Gigabit Society, immediately implemented by the municipal administration of Cosenza. The intervention is entirely borne by Open Fiber, without any type of disbursement for the public coffers".
Benefits for companies and individuals, therefore, but also for the public administration. In fact, the agreement provides for the laying of dark fiber in 50 public buildings (museums, schools, libraries, offices and so on) selected by Palazzo dei Bruzi which will thus be able to provide its services in an increasingly effective, efficient and focused way on the needs of the individual citizen. Open Fiber is a wholesale-only operator: it does not sell optical fiber services directly to the end customer, but is active exclusively on the wholesale market, offering access to all interested market operators.
