- Enel Open Fiber’s Plan for Padua provides for the coverage of around 116,000 premises by mid-2018
- Fibre optic cabling, which can support download and upload speeds of 1 Gbps, will be brought into customers’ homes via Fibre to the Home (FTTH) method
Rome, October 12th, 2016 – The City of Padua and Enel Open Fiber (EOF), the Enel Group company for the development of Italian ultra-broadband infrastructure, have signed the first agreement that will allow fibre optic cables to be laid across the entire city.
The Enel Open Fiber Plan for the City of Padua provides for 50% of premises to be covered by June 2017 and 80% by May 2018, for a total of about 116,000 premises being wired up, approximately 560 km of underground cables and around 210 km of overhead cables. The fibre optics, which can support download and upload speeds of 1 Gbps, will be brought to customers’ homes via the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) method. Cable laying operations will benefit from the support of the City of Padua to ensure speedy completion of the work.
“The company will invest around 30 million euros in order to equip the city with an infrastructure crucial to making Padua a truly smart city,” said smart city councillor Matteo Cavatton. “The administration meanwhile will coordinate all cabling operations. The installation of the fibre optics will see, in large part, the use of existing below surface service infrastructure and cable ducts. Small worksites will be opened where their use isn’t possible.”
EOF plans to create a super-fast broadband fibre optic telecommunications network for Padua, at the same time handling its operation and maintenance, as well as offering, on non-discriminatory technical and financial conditions, access rights to the network, once finalised, to all operators that request them.
In this early stage of the partnership, EOF has entered into separate contracts with the main operators in Italy concerning the cabling of the first 10 cities provided for in its ultra-broadband development plan. The agreements provide for the operators to activate customers on the network that EOF will create, guaranteeing coverage for at least 80% of each city’s premises within the time frame indicated in the roll-out plan. EOF will also handle the operation and maintenance of the new infrastructure. Further agreements with other operators are currently being finalised.
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