The businesses announced on Friday that Telecom Italia (TIM) (TLIT.MI) has inked a commercial arrangement with Open Fiber to offer the competitor broadband network company access to its infrastructure in order to speed up the rollout of fiber in more rural parts of Italy.
Under the terms of the agreement, Open Fiber would pay TIM 200 million euros ($208 million) to access TIM’s network infrastructure in hard-to-reach ‘white zones.’
The commercial partnership comes as TIM and Open Fiber’s primary investor, state lender CDP – which also has a 10% interest in TIM – are negotiating a preliminary agreement to unite the former phone monopoly’s network infrastructure with that of its state-backed rival.
