Italy advances with ultra-wideband but the digital divide remains high

As 2025 draws to a close, Italy is advancing in fixed ultra-wideband, albeit in a picture that remains one of light and shadow. Fibre to the home is growing, copper is retreating and much of the country is improving its connections. But territorial dispersions, delays in public plans for the rollout of fibre and a market that is still unbalanced make it impossible to speak of a real leap in quality. As 2025 draws to a close, Italy is advancing in fixed ultra-wideband, albeit in a picture that remains one of light and shadow. Fibre to the home is growing, copper is retreating and much of the country is improving its connections. But territorial dispersions, delays in public plans for the rollout of fibre and a market that is still unbalanced make it impossible to speak of a real leap in quality.

Crossing the latest data provided in the summer by the European Commission, the elaborations of the I-Com think tank, and the results of the latest Agcom Observatory with numbers updated in June, what transpires is the image of a network that is evolving, yes, but at a pace that does not erase the structural criticalities, nor does it fill the gaps in coverage in the most fragile areas. And if the Italy of the 'Digital Decade' - which, like the whole of the EU, is looking towards digital transformation by 2030 - now seems to be moving at a faster pace than in the past on the infrastructural front, albeit with stumbling blocks such as the one that led to the revision package of the NRP programmes that includes aeven the 700,000 coverage cut requested by Open Fibre for the country's 'grey areas', there is on the other hand a slowdown that becomes even more evident when people, businesses and skills come into the picture. An example? The national roadmap launched in June 2025 aligned almost all targets with the European ones, put 62.3 billion and 67 measures on the table, yet - the projections say - only 5 out of 11 targets will be met before 2030. For some, such as basic digital skills, the date even slips to 2481. A date more like a science fiction novel than an industrial strategy.

Focusing on the infrastructure side, fixed high-capacity and high-speed networks (which today cover 70.7% of the country) will reach the 100% required by the EU in 2028, predicts the I-Com think tank in its latest report presented a month ago. If this is the good part, the not so good part is that the figure now remains far from the European 82.49% for very high capacity networks. And, as mentioned, the figure does not tell the story of the gap between cities and suburbs: in low-density areas, Ftth coverage does not go beyond 36.79%, a percentage that highlights how geography, rather than technology, continues to determine digital maps. And who knows whether, thanks also to the revision of the Pnrr plans, this might not lead to an opening up to satellite as a supporting, 'backhauling' methodology.

However, the numbers are evolving. Especially for the adoption of services. According to the latest Agcom Observatory, with data as of June, from 2021 to 2025 fixed accesses grow slightly - from 20.11 to 20.54 million - while copper drops by almost 3.7 million lines. Ultrabroadband technologies reach about 18 million accesses and pure fibre rises to 31.6 per cent (6.50 million accesses). And it should be borne in mind that in 2021 there were just over 2.1 million active lines surfing via fibre. Fttc (fibre with copper last mile) with its 8.79 million accesses remains the leader, but the figure is down by 7.9 per cent. As for fixed wireless access (Fwa) - with the last mile using millimetre waves instead of fibre or copper - here the most sustained growth is concentrated between one year and the next (+10.5%), although with a number of accesses very far from fibre: 2.48 million. There is therefore a move towards more high-performance and 'future proof' technologies

Meanwhile, the increased data consumption is also leading consumers to make choices in this regard. Lines above 100 Mbit/s reach 80.8%, and 1 Gbit/s lines rise to 31.2%. The average daily traffic is also increasing, reaching 10.07 gigabytes per broadband line (+40% in four years), a sign of a more massive use of the network. But on the other hand it represents a growth that does not indicate a quantum leap in the services used, nor a full integration of digital into everyday activities.