The board of directors of Open Fiber has approved the new 2018-2027 Business Plan: the company of president Franco Bassanini it will cover approximately 19 million real estate units throughout Italy.
The new plan proposed by CEO Elisabetta Ripa – who took over from Tommaso Pompei in January 2018 – will involve 271 cities and around seven thousand Italian municipalities, for an investment exceeding 6,5 billion euros.
The company founded in 2015 controlled by Enel and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti thus continues the process of creating a fiber optic infrastructure in FTTH (Fiber-to-the-home) mode throughout Italy.
During 2018 Open Fiber intends to expand the perimeter of industrial activities in areas A and B (in which 60% of the Italian population lives) up to 100 municipalities; of these, 65 already have activities underway and over 700 construction sites open. To these are gradually added those included in the Infratel tenders for areas C and D. Over the next three years, according to the recently approved Plan, approximately one billion euro will be invested.
The Board then approved the underwriting mandate with Bnp Paribas, Societè Generale and Unicredit for a project financing of 3,5 billion euros, with a duration of 7 years.
The agreement, which will be finalized in the coming months, provides for the completion of the authorization processes by the European Investment Bank. Among the clauses of the agreement there would be the green light from the EIB for the 500 million loan that Open Fiber has been waiting for for months. Funding should arrive by July.
The Board of Directors of Open Fiber also took note of the extension of the agreements with Vodafone to the 271 cities of Clusters A and B, which comes after the agreements already entered into with Wind Tre and Sky on the same perimeter.
In eighteen months, Open Fiber has cabled four cities (Milan, Turin, Bologna from Metroweb, plus Perugia) and is at work in another 9 capitals (Venice, Padua, Genoa, Florence, Bari, Catania, Palermo, Cagliari, Naples). Construction sites in Rome should start this summer.
Thus Elisabetta Ripa, CEO of Open Fiber, commented on the sidelines of the approval of the new Plan: "A new phase begins for Open Fiber, which aims to accelerate the creation of the FTTH network in the main cities and municipalities covered by the Infratel tenders . In just a few months, Open Fiber has proven to be an innovative and competitive interlocutor in the telecommunications services market, coagulating around its wholesale business model - in addition to the necessary financial resources - important customers, the best professional skills and the most qualified suppliers " .
“The expansion of our FTTH fiber offer thanks to the agreement with Open Fiber, together with the important investments by Vodafone for the development of mobile networks towards 5G, consolidates our role as an accelerator of digital transformation at the service of families and businesses – declares Aldo Bisio, Chief Executive Officer of Vodafone Italia -. The independent network model, an alternative to the copper network, represented by Open Fiber opens up competition on the access network and will stimulate more and more investments aimed at service innovation".
