en.Wedoany.com Reported - FiberCop has won the tender for the National Connectivity Fund (FNC), securing €712.5 million in public subsidies to build a gigabit fixed network covering 477,000 addresses nationwide.
The tender was launched by the Department for Digital Transformation (Dipartimento per la Trasformazione Digitale), with Invitalia acting as the implementing partner to allocate subsidies to FiberCop, amounting to 70% of the total cost. FiberCop was the only company to submit a bid in any competitive procedure.
The winning scope covers over 477,000 addresses (equivalent to approximately 700,000 housing units), distributed across seven geographical areas. FiberCop's total investment is expected to be no more than €300 million (excluding anticipated subsidies). Part of this includes addresses from Open Fiber's abandoned "Italy 1 Giga Plan," while the remainder comes from Infratel's latest survey results.
Deployment will begin in the second half of 2026, with a focus on the period from 2027 to 2029, and is planned to be completed by the June 2030 deadline. Subsidies will be disbursed gradually during the deployment process, with FiberCop potentially receiving advance payments as early as 2026.
The 477,000 addresses in this tender are all located in gray areas, representing an addition to the 1.2 million addresses previously covered by FiberCop through the PNRR project, and do not conflict with prior coverage commitments. FiberCop's strategy to complete FTTH deployment in the "Italy 1 Giga Plan" areas by mid-2026 and in autonomous regions by the end of 2027 remains unchanged.
From an economic perspective, winning the National Connectivity Fund tender should improve the company's long-term structural financial indicators, but it will not have a material impact on net capital expenditure guidance, expected financial leverage, or financial policies in the short term.
The tender stipulates that public subsidies can cover up to 70% of eligible expenses, and the related projects must ensure a minimum downlink speed of 1 Gbit/s and an uplink speed of at least 200 Mbit/s during peak hours. FiberCop's submitted proposal includes building infrastructure capable of covering over 477,000 addresses nationwide by 2030.
