Fastweb’s fibre optic network, avalaible in selected Italian cities, covers 2 million potential customers and it is believed to be the most extensive fibre optic infrastructure in Europe.
Now Fastweb has about 250.000 customers connected through FTTH.

The two companies said the are committed to:

• Joint planning for the realization of civil infrastructure facilitating cable laying for the development of respective fibre optic networks - for example cable ducts along roads – to favour the development of new generation networks while eliminating further infrastructure duplication.
• The exchange, under reciprocal conditions, of rights to use civil infrastructure.
• Joint study and testing of innovative techniques in civil infrastructure, such as the use of latest generation micro-tubing for laying optical fibre.

Instead, Telecom Italia will adopy a multi-technology strategy depending on market environment and demands using a mix of FTTH, FTTB, FTTCab and VDSL2.

The Pirell Broadband Solution’s booth acts as the central office streaming live HDTV programming, with a WDM-PON optical line termination unit (OLT) delivering one optical channel to three other booths, which for demonstration purpose represent city buildings.
Each booth (Telecom Italia, Alcatel-Lucent and Italtel), have an optical network termination (ONT) to receive 1 Gbit/s Ethernet bandwidth for the delivery of premium telecom services.
As part of the same demo, Pirelli is also featuring its latest technology for the ‘connected home’. From a DSLAM, the signal enter the demo house through Pirelli’s VDSL2 gateway and connects to a wireless video extender, which distributes the high definition signal throughout the home network.

Telecom Italia’s CTO, Stefano Pileri, confirmed during its keynote speech at C5 World in Milan that the company is willing to invest € 6.5 bn in its NGN2 project.
However, to enable ultra-broadband connectivity, Telecom Italia is not massively investing in FTTH (fiber to the home) solutions. Instead, it plans to deploy both FTTCab (fiber to the cabinet) and FTTB (fiber to the building) solutions using VDSL2 technology over copper on customer drop.
FTTCab will support downstream rates up to 50 Mbit/s in no dense areas, while FFTB will support rates up to 100 Mbit/s in dense areas or where fibre access infrastructure is readily available.
Deployment of this NGN2 ultra-broadband access network already started in Milan covering 5.000 buildings and deployment in Rome is coming soon. According to the latest three-year plan, 5,2% of the population will be reached by end of 2009.
The Fiber + VDSL2 technology could reach 65% of the population in a decade (or shorter, depending on investments and regulatory climate, added Pileri), reaching 75.000 street cabinets out of 145.000.

Telecom Italia NGN2 ultra-broadband access network

the company intends to launch the transformation of the access network into a New Generation Network, enabling the transmission of high-definition television programmes, movies, music and video, as well as business and public services (tele-medicine, info-mobility etc.).
The “Next Generation Network” will also involve the separation from Telecom Italia of the access network, according to a model to be jointly developed with the Authority.

Telecom Italia also insisted that, despite its intention of spinning off its mobile division TIM after having merged it into the main company less than two years ago:

convergence between fixed telephony, mobile telephony, broadband Internet and media content remains its strategic goal.