Telecom Italia's FiberCop and Iliad in fibre broadband deal
MILAN, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Telecom Italia (TIM) has signed an agreement with Iliad for the French telecoms group to co-invest in TIM's last-mile grid business FiberCop to speed the rollout of fibre broadband connections in Italy.
The announcement of the agreement by TIM on Monday follows a separate arrangement with Fastweb, the Italian unit of Swisscom , while finalising another with Tiscali.
TIM envisages Iliad co-investing in FiberCop to help to develop the network that connects street cabinets with people's homes without the French group taking a stake in the venture.
As part of the agreement TIM will also give Iliad, which is due to launch its fixed-line business in Italy after the summer, access to its primary fibre network, enabling it to offer customers ultrafast fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connections.
TIM said the agreement confirmed the validity of FiberCop's investment plan, which targets 75% of the so-called grey and black areas of Italy - which include cities and industrial districts - with FTTH connections at speeds of more than 1 gigabyte per second by 2025.
No financial details of the agreement were disclosed. (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak Editing by David Goodman)
