The Italian government buckled down on broadband, launching a new multi-billion euro fund which aims to provide enough support to help operators push gigabit services to nearly 7 million locations in the coming years.
Dubbed Italia a 1Giga (or “Italy to 1 Gig”), the funding initiative is set to provide a total of €3.65 billion (approximately $4.14 billion) in grants to fuel deployments across 15 regions in Italy. Sardinia is slated to receive the largest piece of the pie, with a total of €356.3 million allotted to cover nearly 664,000 locations. PA Trento and PA Bolzano will receive the least, with €34.5 million set aside for nearly 63,000 locations.
Operators will be permitted to submit bids for the grants through March 16, and will be able to win funding in a maximum of eight regions. Winning bidders will be required to deliver broadband service offering speeds of 1 Gbps downstream and 200 Mbps upstream by June 30, 2026. The grants may be used to cover up to 70% of the operators’ project costs.
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Bids will be judged on economic considerations, the characteristics of the planned network, the quality of recruitment and training plans for personnel, and the commitments made to ensure diversity and support for disadvantaged groups. According to a timeline included in its “Towards a Gigabit Society” strategy issued in May 2021, awards are scheduled to be made sometime before the end of Q2 2022.
Grant winners will be expected to hit their first coverage milestone of 20% by Q3 2023 and 60% coverage by Q1 2025.
A FTTH Council Europe report issued in September 2021 showed around 16 million homes in Italy were expected to be covered by fiber by the end of 2021, with that figure forecast to grow to 26 million by 2026.
Italy isn’t the only country investing in broadband. The U.K. launched a £5 billion “Project Gigabit” initiative in March 2021, aiming to ensure 85% of the country is covered with gigabit-capable service by 2025.