The national post office’s digital unit is already Italy’s largest MVNO by subscribers.
Italy’s national postal operator says its digital services arm PostePay will launch FTTH services later this year. The company is already the country’s largest MVNO by subscribers via its PosteMobile unit, which has more than 4.3 million customers.
The plan is to offer converged fixed-mobile services and expand its customer base to 5.1 million by 2024.
Making progress
Last July, PostePay signed wholesale agreements to buy wholesale fibre capacity from Open Fiber and Telecom Italia (TIM).
Italy’s government has been keen to increase competition in fibre broadband for a long time, pushing for a single national wholesale infrastructure. After many delays, this appears to be making good progress. This is to encourage competition between service providers, and it looks like it is about to get its wish.
Plans regarding TIM and Fibercop are finally moving, and the disruptive mobile operator Iliad (which operates under the Free brand) has said it will launch fixed broadband too.
The wireless ISP LInkem is also launching gigabit fibre services under the JustSpeed brand.
Closing the digital divide
TIM has committed to closing the digital divide during 2021 after the pandemic has underlined the critical importance of reliable connectivity. It annouced Puglia as the first region to have 100% broadband of at least 200Mbps coverage in February.