Italian operators reach draft agreement on FiberCo

The Italian government released a draft proposal for the major operators to cooperate on rolling out fibre networks. If approved by all the participants, the publicly-owned company FiberCo will launch its first deployments by September, with trials in six Italian cities. The tests should be completed by April 2012. The ultimate goal of FiberCo is to cover at least 50 percent of Italian homes by 2020. It will roll out only in areas where operators do not plan their own fibre projects. A memorandum of understanding was signed last November for the participation of Telecom Italia, Vodafone Italia, Wind, 3 Italia, Fastweb, Tiscali, BT and Fos (a group of smaller operators).