The company that is building a fiber optic infrastructure is pushing Italy's rise in the European digital rankings.But all the new technological applications in our cities need ultra-fast connectivityIn 2012, the UN Human Rights Council declared access to the internet as a "fundamental right of the person and a condition for their full individual and social development", adding that every person "has an equal right to access the Internet under of equality, with technologically adequate and up-to-date methods that remove all obstacles of an economic and social nature ".In those years Italy, which at the dawn of 2000 was a world excellence in the telecommunications sector, had fallen to the bottom of the European rankings.In large cities, Fttc technology began to consolidate: a mixed fiber optic - copper network, capable of reaching 100-200 megabits per second of speed, which began to replace the classic ADSL copper networks (technology launched 15 years earlier and which was still by far the one most in use).In small municipalities the connection was fragile at best, and completely absent in thousands of other cases.In this scenario, Open Fiber was born at the beginning of 2016, a company jointly owned by Enel and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, to create a network capable of guaranteeing ultra-fast and stable connectivity, with an innovative technology and business model for Italy and with few precedents. in Europe.Open Fiber's infrastructure is entirely in optical fiber, without copper sections, and arrives directly inside homes and offices: Ftth (Fiber To The Home, fiber to the home), the only technology that can currently reach and exceed the speed of 1 Gigabit per second (which is 10 times faster, on average, than an Fttc connection).Open Fiber then chooses to be a pure, wholesale only infrastructure operator: it does not sell connectivity services to end customers, but makes its network available to all interested operators on equal terms.A choice that allows to open the market also to players from different sectors and which is enjoying growing success in Europe, to the point that the EU has regulated this business model in the European Code of Electronic Communications.The first city wired by Open Fiber - which had acquired the network built by Metroweb in Milan, Turin and Bologna - is Perugia.Followed by Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Venice and other medium-sized cities (to date 220).Subsequently, Open Fiber won all three tenders launched by Infratel - a Mise company - for the twenty-year construction and management of an ultra-broadband network in about 7000 small Italian municipalities, the so-called white areas.While in large and medium-sized cities (black areas) Open Fiber builds its infrastructure with private investment, in the white areas, i.e. those areas where no operator had declared an interest in intervening, Open Fiber acts as a public concessionaire, building and managing for 20 years an infrastructure that remains state-owned.And it so happened that the small villages, the historically most disadvantaged areas from the point of view of Internet coverage, returned to play a leading role during the pandemic.Covid 19 has dramatically marked a turning point, disrupting the daily lives of billions of people around the world and inflicting a severe blow to many business segments.The lockdown has made it clear and evident to everyone the need for an enormous amount of bandwidth: from smart working to remote teaching, with videocalls, up to free time, which has seen a significant increase in streaming and gaming.Activities that require very low latency, large data transmission capacity (both in download and upload) and simultaneous use.The need to remain isolated, at the same time, made it clear that working in an “elsewhere” than the office is possible.For thousands of Italians, this elsewhere has coincided with the return to their places of origin, and the presence of a fiber optic network is making it possible to repopulate the villages, nullifying the gap from a digital point of view between the Serie A citizens of the large cities and those of series B of small municipalities.Much remains to be done, but the impact that Open Fiber has had on the digital sector in Italy is tangible.With over 14 million wired real estate units, Open Fiber is by far the leading FTTH operator in Italy and at the top in Europe.Since the entry of Open Fiber on the market in 2017, Italy has reversed the trend that had pushed our country towards the bottom of the continental charts on digital.To certify it are the official documents of the European Union and Agcom and the reports produced by Idate on behalf of the FTTH Council.The last four Desi certify the Italian progression in Vhcn coverage: from 22% in 2017 to 34% in June 2020 (latest data available).Regarding FTTH / B coverage, FTTH Council (September 2021) placed Italy in third place in Europe in this technology after France and Spain.The Agcom Observatory confirms the progression of the use of FTTH fiber in Italy: in December 2016 there were 440 thousand users who surfed on the FTTH network in Italy, while in December 2021 they were 2.65 million, of which 68% on the Open Fiber network.There have been big changes for Open Fiber in the last year.The founding company, Enel, has sold its shares to Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, which with 60% is now the majority shareholder, and to the Australian investment fund Macquarie (40%), already present in the infrastructure business in several countries Europeans.At the same time, a new management was appointed, with Mario Rossetti as managing director.With a long experience in the world of Tlc (Vodafone and Fastweb, of which he was one of the founders), Rossetti has been CFO of Open Fiber since its foundation and has drawn up the new industrial plan of the company which aims to reach 25 million units. real estate in 91% of Italian municipalities.To the coverage of large and medium-sized cities (black areas) and small villages (white areas), Open Fiber will add that of industrial areas (gray areas) in 9 regions, after having won 8 of the 15 lots (the maximum obtainable according to the tender) of the tenders launched by Mitd to offer public support for the construction of the network in those areas.Once the ultra-broadband coverage of homes, offices and public administration offices has been completed (to date, Open Fiber has wired over 15,000 schools), the next step is the digital infrastructure of the country as a whole: roads, highways, ports, railway network, electricity network.From home automation and HD streaming to intelligent traffic and access control, from irrigation systems and land monitoring to electric mobility, everything that can be improved with digital applications needs the best possible connection, which currently travels on optical fiber. .The new challenge for Open Fiber will be to present itself as the country's nervous system, the neutral platform with the most advanced technology on the market on which operators from different sectors can develop new services and products.Editing redazione@economygroup.it Marketing & Content Factory marketing@economygroup.it Other info info@economygroup.it Tel. 02/89767777For advertising Oyster srl (Exclusive dealer) Tel. 3425556601 segreteria@oystermedia.itYour personal data will be used to support your experience on this website, to manage access to your account and for other purposes described in our privacy policy.I agree to receive promotional material relating to products and offers from third party partners.See our privacy policy.© Economy Magazine - Powered by Contents.com