Sick of Italy being seen as an online laggard, Mayor Piero Fassino has signed an agreement with the Milan-based telecoms firm, Metroweb, to install a new fibre-optic network that will cover 70 percent of the northern city, Today.it reported.
The company will get to work “within the next few months”, the website said.
The ambitious goal far outshines the plans outlined by the Italian government earlier this week that would give all citizens access to an internet network with a capacity of 30 megabits per second by 2020.
READ MORE HERE: Italy adopts plan to shift into internet fast lane
A report published last year by the US consultancy Akamai found that Italy came 48th among countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa regions in terms of internet speed and with a current speed of 5.5 megabits per second, labelled it the slowest in the European Union.
While 100 megabits per second may sound fast, especially by Italy's standards, it is not record-breaking.
That achievement goes to the US town of Chattanooga, which has an internet speed of one gigabit per second.
Member comments