Telecom Italia expands fiber network to 22 cities

Telecom Italia (NYSE: TI) has expanded its fiber network, which provides download speeds of 30 Mbps, to 30 cities across the country. This is the first major expansion of the telco's fiber network since it launched last year in Rome, Turin and Naples.

Cities that are now outfitted with fiber include Monza, Bergamo, Brescia, Como, Varese, Venice, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Genoa, Florence, Pisa, Prato, Ancona, Bari, Taranto, Palermo, Brindisi and Catanzaro.  The company's fiber footprint now reaches 2.8 million premises.

Telecom Italia's fiber deployment includes both fiber to the cabinet (FTTC) and fiber to the home (FTTH), however the FTTC deployment is much smaller. Currently FTTH is only deployed in Milan with 455,000 residences connected with plans to expand to 564,000 by the end of 2015.

In late May Telecom Italia's board voted to spin off its wireline last mile network so it could raise money to invest in new network services speed up its broadband rollouts.

In early June Hutchison Whampoa said it was interested in a merger with Telecom Italia but those talks have since been put on hold.   

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