The provider will use a new technology that will permit all those customers connected to the FTTC network to navigate at speeds between 100 Mbps and 500 Mbps from 2016. These solutions are essential in the development of the ultrabroadband network throughout Italy and the achievement of the objectives of the Digital Agenda
FASTWEB announces that as of 2016 its fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) network will be boosted by innovative technologies that will allow it to increase connection speeds to over 100 megabit per second (Mbps) and up to 500 Mbps. A variety of technologies will be installed (Vectoring, GFast and enhanced Vdsl) that, by 2020, will further speed up the connection of all the buildings reached by FASTWEB’s infrastructure, that is 7.5 million families and businesses, equal to 30% of the Italian population. The investment for the upgrade of the network will be approximately 100 million Euro. Each year FASTWEB invests over 400 million euro in order to expand and innovate its infrastructure. The network upgrade announced today will be part of this capex profile.
Today FASTWEB’s FTTC customers are connected at average speeds of 75 Mbps in download and 30 Mbps in upload (survey by the Politecnico di Milano). With the adoption of these new technologies the speed of the whole network will be increased to over 100 Mbps and may reach up to 500 Mbps. The decision to upgrade the network’s speed was taken thanks to the evolution in fibre optic technology and to the excellent results obtained in various pilot tests that FASTWEB carried out with Alcatel-Lucent and other suppliers, the results of which will be presented today.
In 1999, FASTWEB was the first provider to rollout a fibre to the home (FTTH) access network reaching two million homes in Milan, Genoa, Bologna, Turin, Rome, Bari and Naples. In 2010 it was the first provider in Europe to offer speeds of up to 100 Mbps to its residential customers. In 2012 the Company started an investment plan for the expansion of the FTTC network to cover a total of 7.5 million families and businesses (30% of the Italian population) by the end of 2016. FASTWEB’s constant drive for innovation and the relative investment - equal to 35% of its revenues, a percentage which no other European provider reaches - have allowed the Company to increase the number of customers and its revenues in 2014, a year in which the turnover of the whole telecommunications industry decreased.
FTTC is the architecture adopted nowadays by the main Italian and European ultrabroadband providers thanks to the fact that it is less expensive (it costs 25% of FTTH), that its rollout is much faster (a quarter of the time necessary for FTTH rollout) and thanks to its universal sustainability (FTTH is only sustainable in densely inhabited metropolitan areas). For this reason, over the last year, companies involved in telecommunications research and development - including Alcatel-Lucent - have concentrated their efforts on further improving the performance of this technology. It is thanks to this breakthrough research that the paradigm of fibre optic technology has been brought to new heights.
In October 2014, FASTWEB carried out the first laboratory test on Vectoring, GFast and enhanced Vdsl. In December, these same technologies were tested in Rome, Monza Milan, Leghorn, Turin, Bari and Genoa in order to verify their performance in various conditions, i.e. the number of customers connected and the length of the line from the cabinet. All the customers reached speeds of over 100 Mbps, in 80% of cases the connection speed was over 200 Mbps and in 20% it was over 500 Mbps.
Thanks to the innovation in the technologies used on an FTTC architecture, Italy will be able to achieve the objectives of the European Digital Agenda (i.e. the availability of 30 Mbps connection speeds for 100% of the population and 100 Mbps for 50% of the population by 2020), thus cancelling the infrastructural gap with respect to other European countries.
Alberto Calcagno, Chief Executive Officer of FASTWEB, declared “These technologies not only allow FASTWEB to further upgrade its FTTC network, they also represent a solution for the development of the ultrabroadband network in the whole Italian territory and the achievement of the Digital Agenda goal before 2020. It is for this reason that the Italian Government may decide to use the funds allocated for the development of ultrabroadband in order to incentivize the development of FTTC networks in the whole of Italy, including the areas which are not covered at present”.
Roberto Loiola, Chief Executive Officer of Alcatel-Lucent Italia, added “We are very proud to be beside FASTWEB in the evolution of next generation ultrabroadband fibre optic technologies. Alcatel-Lucent is an undoubted leader in these technologies both globally and in Italy. The Company is a protagonist in technological progress and standardization and its technology will allow networks to reach performance levels which would have been unthinkable until recently, even considering the technologies which exploit the last mile in copper. We would like to take this opportunity to share the results of our research and development, including the projects developed in our new labs in Vimercate, for the benefit of our Nation and of the Italian Digital Agenda.”