Italy to pump €1 billion into broadband

The Italian state is set to invest about €1 billion into the development of broadband services as part of of a public-private partnership. Paolo Romani, undersecretary for economic development, said the implementation of New Generation Networks (NGN) will lead to an annual increase of the GDP of 1.5 to 2 percentage points.

Romani added that said the total costs for an NGN network would be around €10 billion, with the state financing around 10%. It is planned that by 2013 the entire country will have the possibility of connecting to third our fourth generation internet.