TIM opens its fibre to Open Fiber for €200m a year
Telecom Italia (TIM) has signed an agreement with Open Fiber to grant its rival broadband network company access to its infrastructure. The labour saving pact could speed up the rollout of fibre in the more remote parts of Italy by saving on duplication of effort. Open Fiber will pay €200 million to use TIM’s network infrastructure in Italy’s remotest regions or difficult terrains to cable (AKA ‘white areas’).
The pact comes not long after TIM started formal talks with a state-owned bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) about its plan to create a single network project. They had missed their original deadline, on April 30, for creating a preliminary agreement.
No more white outages
CDP owns 10% of TIM and 60% of Open Fiber. TIM CEO Pietro Labriola has always confidently asserted that an accord was within reach. However another stakeholder, private equity giant KKR, complicated the matter by asking for guarantees over the economic returns of any single network deal before giving its backing.
KKR has a 37.5% stake in Fiber Cop which it bought for €1.8 billion ($1.9 billion) in 2020. It has the power to veto any deal that is doesn’t add to the value of FiberCop, which would be included in any combined network entity with Open Fiber.