The news of recent days tells that, in the province of Trento, the process of shutting down the copper network of Tim in Italy has begun. The Mattarello plant, which serves over 2,000 users in the south of the capital, becomes the first nationwide fully wired in fiber with Fiber to the home (FTTH) technology. As a direct consequence, all customers served by the exchange abandon the historic and dated copper network of TIM to switch to super-fast connections (up to 1 GB). The president of the Autonomous Province of Trento Maurizio Fugatti explains: “We aim to become the first Digital Smart Land in the Alps, a digitally intelligent, inclusive and sustainable territory”. We are talking, therefore and above all, of ultrabroadband (ultra-broadband) which consists in the ability of networks to send data at very high speed, equivalent to at least 100 Mbps. A strategic program launched in March 2015, the one on acceleration for the transition to ultrabroadband services . We recall that it is among the priorities expressed and supported by the Italian Recovery Plan with a total allocation of 49.2 billion to promote the digital transformation of the country, support the innovation of the production system and invest in two key sectors for Italy, tourism and culture. In particular, the investments envisaged in the plan focus on the provision of ultra-broadband and fast connections with the aim of bringing connectivity to 1 Gbps in the fixed network to approximately 8.5 million families and 9,000 school buildings that still lack it. , and ensure adequate connectivity to the 12,000 points of delivery of the National Health Service. In addition, a 5G Italy Plan is also launched for the enhancement of mobile connectivity. The project does not only concern the modernization of the network but rather the ability to bring customers to a very high capacity infrastructure, making the investment in optical fiber sustainable. The document Compass for digital 2030: the European way to the digital decade (Digital compass 2030) identifies ambitious connectivity goals: connectivity of at least 1 Gbps for all European families and 5G coverage in all populated areas. In the hearing of March 18, 2021, the Minister of Technological Innovation and Digital Transition indicated even more ambitious objectives: to ensure the achievement of these objectives from 2026, an ambitious program that operates in a context, the Italian one of broadband and ultra-broadband , which is certainly not exciting. The latest numbers elaborated by Okla, a company that monitors network performance and, to keep open a comparison, are starting to circulate, while in France, in the Paris area, you surf the Internet at an average download speed of 187.94 megabits per second, Milan reaches 122.45 but other important cities such as Piacenza (53.15) and Parma (72.6) travel low even if the black jersey of Italy goes to Frosinone: 27.61 megabits per second. from a commercial point of view, especially in this post-pandemic moment, the optical fiber would be the most necessary to allow business and ecommerce activities to manage cloud solutions in real time, with regard to present and incoming goods, avoiding the threat of interruptions of stock. In addition to enhancing the Click and Collect sales methods: the customer books or orders the items available in an online store, and then goes to the selected physical stores and physically picks up the goods. A new hybrid sales model, called phygital, (a bit physical and a bit digital) in which technology acts as a mediator between conventional retail and online sales.
