Italian ISP Fastweb is reportedly close to securing a EUR240 million (USD258 million) loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to help fund its fibre-optic network rollout. A report from Corcom says the investment could be finalised in the coming weeks, and will cover around half of what Fastweb needs for its plan to deploy fibre networks to 13 million households, providing speeds of up to 200Mbps.
The ISP currently reaches around 2.2 million premises with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) equipment and a further 5.3 million with slower fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) infrastructure. Under a partnership agreement with Telecom Italia (TIM), Fastweb eventually plans to pass five million premises with FTTH and eight million with FTTC.