Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano on Friday announced the Capex (capital spending) plans and strategies.
Capex of Telecom Italia decreased 13.2 percent in Q3 2014 to €933 million. Out of this, Capex for Italy dipped 9.3 percent to €615 million, while Capex for Brazil telecom market declined 19.7 percent to €317 billion.
Telecom Italia posted 4.5 percent dip in Q3 2014 revenue to $6.7 billion or €5,421 million. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization dropped 8 percent to €2.24 billion.
Innovative Capex
The Milan-based carrier continued its focus on Innovative Capex plan.
The telecom operator said 66 percent of the Capex in the domestic business was innovative network component in the first nine months of 2014, grew by 8 percentage points versus the same period of last year.
In Italy, 27 percent NGN coverage is above the mid-point of 2014-16 of the Original Plan target. 74 percent LTE coverage is an over achievement against 2014 target of 60 percent and 2015 target of 70 percent.
Telecom Italia has covered 81 cities by its MBB Project with 36 percent urban coverage. Plan is to cover 100 cities by end of 2014.
“We are investing to strengthen our role of Digital Champion in Italy, where innovative services and content create more and more demand for bandwidth and speed. Network and IT transformation and delayering are a key part of the process,” said Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano.
Telecom Italia is increasing its innovative Capex in Brazil to accelerate the implementation of new technologies for mobile data and further stimulate the commercial take-up of 4G. TIM covers around 36 percent of the urban population with 4G, serving 45 municipalities.
Nine month innovative Capex grew by €102 million, increasing their weight on total network Capex to 37 percent. The increase in innovative Capex is more than fully financed by efficiency program, an important driver to contain the cost of innovative technology is fixed passive infrastructure sharing.
“The cost of our civil works for laying out fiber currently is €86,000 per kilometer when we need to dig and against only €6,000 if we have passive dots are already in place,” Telecom Italia CEO said.
The sharing of mobile network passive infrastructure with other operators is progressing, delivering continuous efficiencies.
Telecom Italia launched LTE Advanced service in 60 Italian cities, featuring download speeds of up to 180 megabits.
The company has already covered 27 percent of the country with fiber, reaching more than half of its 2014-2016 original target.
Telecom Italia has more than 150,000 VDSL retail customers, and it is now selling an average of more than 500 new contracts per day.
Baburajan K
[email protected]
