Telecom operator TIM on Monday said it will be launching 5G network trials in Turin, installing over 100 small cells this year, adding to the 200 mobile broadband antennas.

Municipality of Turin and TIM signed a Memorandum of Understanding for making a live 5G project by 2018 in Turin. The strategy of TIM is to make Turin the first Italian city and one of the first cities in Europe to have a new 5G mobile network.

TIM said the Turin 5G project includes the extension of the new mobile broadband infrastructure to the municipal urban area with the aim of covering the entire city by 2020.

TIM plans to install, as early as 2017, more than 100 small cells in main areas of the city including Via Roma, Via Po, Via Garibaldi, Via Lagrange and Piazza Vittorio, in the Quadrilatero Romano, and in the areas where the Polytechnic University and University of Turin are located.

TIM will utilize its 200 mobile broadband sites to guarantee the best radio coverage in the city. TIM’s optic fibre infrastructure, which already covers almost the entire city, will support the new mobile network.

Turin will be nominated by TIM as the first Italian 5G city to become the preferred location for the activities envisaged in the 5G Action Plan of the European Commission, which aims to speed up development by launching trials and later public use of the new technology starting with the main metropolitan areas. Turin will become part of the first pan-European network of 5G interconnected cities.

The trial will involve up to a maximum of 3,000 users who will be able to take advantage of very high performances and transmission speeds and experimental services and applications, provided by the city administration and made possible by TIM’s 5G network.

TIM will provide the city of Turin with new services linked to the Smart City, such as those relating to public security, the management of public transport fleets and the provision of the information services associated with them, as well as remote surveillance solutions in extensive areas of the city, virtual reality to support tourism and.

Giuseppe Recchi, executive chairman of TIM, said: “We are the first private investor in the country with a business plan that includes 11 billion euros of investments in 3 years, 5 billion of which will be dedicated to developing the new ultrabroadband networks.”