L’EU Antitrust announced the green light for €3.8 billion scheme that theItaly made available through the Pnrr promote the deployment of high-performance gigabit networks in areas where no network currently exists or is planned to provide download speeds of at least 300 Mbps.
Italy will fund the project through the EU Recovery Fund Rrf (Recovery and Resilience Device). Work will begin in the areas known as “white”where no operator invests in very high speed and therefore the State must intervene.
This €3.8 billion Italian state program will support the development of high-performance networks in currently underserved areas in Italy and enable consumers and businesses to access high-quality internet services, thus contributing to the economic growth of the country while ensuring that competition is not unduly distortedunderlined the Commission’s Executive Vice-President responsible for competition policy, Margrethe Vestager.
The scheme will remain in effect until June 30, 2026 and the planned support will take the form of direct grants. The measure will finance the dissemination of networks enabling download speeds of 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) and 200 megabits per second (Mbps) and is part of a larger plan as detailed here.