TIM and Open Fiber Sign an Agreement to Speed Up Digitalization of Italy

Telecom Italia signed a commercial agreement to share its network infrastructure with state-backed Open Fiber. The deal aims to accelerate the rollout of fiber into remote areas of Italy.

The €200 million reciprocal deal involves Open Fiber accessing the infrastructure of Telecom Italia’s Fibercop unit and vice-versa in so-called white areas, where public funding is being used to finance network deployments. Telecom Italia stated the deal involves Open Fiber accessing aerial infrastructure and access connections to home from FiberCop. In return, the operator plans to make Open Fiber service available to at least 500,000 customers.

Telecom Italia CEO Pietro Labriola said the deal was a further step forward in the execution of their asset enhancement strategy. The strategy involves Telecom Italia separating infrastructure assets from its service operations, with the plan set to be presented in early July. TIM’s deal with OpenFiber could be a precursor to a merger of FiberCop to create a single fiber network company in Italy. In April, TIM signed a non-disclosure agreement with state lender CDP to discuss the merger of its fixed network with Open Fiber.