More than 250,000 homes and companies will be able to take advantage of ultrafast broadband for browsing at a download speed of 200 megabytes per second and 20 megabytes upload speed, thanks to the Fastweb's significant infrastructure investment plan, expanding the coverage area around the Lombard capital with the municipalities of Buccinasco (MI) and Cesano Boscone (MI), extending to the areas around Bergamo, Monza and Brianza, reaching Agrate Brianza (MB), Bovisio-Masciago (MB), Limbiate (MB), Meda (MB) and Seriate (BG).
This strategy attests to the constant attention to areas of high economic development, and the commitment to extending the benefits of fast connections to a growing number of people and companies in mid-sized Italian cities. Using this same strategy, the extension of fiber network was applied in two areas on the outskirts of Rome (Ciampino and Guidonia Montecelio), Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Molfetta and Trani in Puglia and finally Trapani. Furthermore, in July, the Fastweb fiber optic network will also reach Carugate, Pieve Emanuele and Settimo Milanese in the Milan area. The wiring operations will continue in Puglia and Lazio, where they will respectively reach Andria, Aprilia and Pomezia.
That takes the total up to 119 cities connected to Fastweb FttC, 73 of which with connections up to 200 megabytes per second and 46 at 100 megabytes. For this last cluster, in the first three months of 2018, Fastweb will launch a free upgrade up to 200 megabytes for all customers operating at 100. Our customers' connections will be even faster, including via Wi-Fi, thanks to the new performance of the network optimized by FASTGate, Fastweb's latest generation modem and the most powerful on the market. With the infrastructure extension work to be completed by the end of 2017, Fastweb's fiber network will connect 130 cities in total.
The new cities within the fiber network already have access to WOW FI, the open Wi-Fi service which allows all Fastweb customers to browse free of charge with their mobile devices wherever they go, using in total security any Wi-Fi access point available to the community in over 800 Italian cities and towns.
The Fastweb fiber network expansion plan – which currently reaches a total of 7.7 million homes and companies, 2.5 million of which use the FttH (Fiber to the Home) technology, and 5.2 million with FttC (Fiber to the Cabinet) technology – involves, by 2020, bringing ultrafast broadband to 50% of the population, in other words 13 million homes and companies, 8 million of which with FttC technology and 5 million with FttH.
Following investments made across the nation, Fastweb's ultrafast broadband customer base continues to grow. By March 31st there was an increase of 29% compared to the 669,000 from the previous year, where the acquisition rate more than doubled, with the number of Fastweb fiber optic customers with connections ranging from 100Mb to 1G reaching 864,000.
