Fastweb, one of the main telecommunications operators in Italy, is now a new member of the 5G Infrastructure Association (5G IA), a network that aims to build consensus on 5G technology and encourage development in Europe.
The 5G IA represents the European private sector within the 5G Public-Private Partnership (5G-PPP), one of the main research programmes on 5G at global level and was founded as part of the integrated financing system for European Union Horizon 2020 research activities.
The initiative unites a vast group of digital sector and telecommunications stakeholders including universities, research institutes and small and medium enterprises. The association is involved in a broad range of activities in strategic areas: research and development projects, technological evolution, standardisation, frequency spectrum and working together with international companies.
"We are proud to join one of the main European research and development networks on 5G technology. Fastweb is ready to play a leading role in the construction of a network that will successfully support 5G, further consolidating its competitive advantage in terms of infrastructure", stated Mario Mella, Chief Technology Officer at Fastweb. "Fastweb holds all the 5G elements: end-to-end fibre optic network, twenty-two thousand cabinets ready to house the microcells and frequencies in the main cities and frequencies in the main cities to which the company has access. We are setting ourselves the goal of becoming 5G trailblazers and we think we have the necessary credentials to achieve our goal."
Our joining of the 5G Infrastructure Association bears witness to the specific desire of Fastweb to become the leader of a genuine technological revolution with the creation of a new generation 5G network and, at the same time, its focus on the key role of European research and the industry.
Thanks to the agreements for frequencies entered into in December last year and the end-to-end fibre optic infrastructure that extends throughout Italy, Fastweb already has all the strategic assets necessary to play a leading role in 5G. The company is one of the top operators that will perform 5G trials in Europe, with the project fine-tuned with TIM and Huawei, which won the Mise tender as a consortium for the trial of the new technology in the cities of Bari and Matera. This will allow individuals and companies to benefit - by 2019 - from innovative services in sectors like healthcare, the 4.0 industry, tourism, culture, automotive and road safety. Furthermore, last July, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rome City Council to define trial projects based on 5G and Wi-Fi technologies, for digital application development for the Smart City and IoT, Internet of Things, to be implemented in certain areas of the municipal territory by 2020.