Greece’s Ministry of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Information has launched a tender worth EUR870 million (USD970.6 million) to find partners for the rollout of its Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFBB) project. The government is looking to form public-private partnerships (PPP) to deliver broadband connectivity to rural areas. EUR300 million of the funding will come from the government and the EU, with the remainder coming from the private sector.
The state expects the UFBB scheme to cover some 2.5 million Greek citizens who are not included in existing telco rollout plans, with networks offering connectivity at speeds of between 100Mbps and 1Gbps. The country will be split into seven regions, with the winners of the regional tenders committing to deploy high speed networks and then leasing these on a wholesale basis to third-party service providers such as Cosmote and Vodafone.