FASTWEB reaches 45 per cent of Italy; has 160,000 TV subscribers

May 15th, 2006 - FASTWEB says it has now completed its network roll-out, ahead of schedule, and passes 10 million homes - or 45 per cent of the Italian population. The company has 160,000 television/VOD subscribers from a total customer base of 793,700, which makes it the third largest IPTV deployment in Europe behind Telefonica’s Imagenio (over 200,000 subscribers) and France Telecom’s MaLigne TV (approximately 200,000 at the end of 2005). It uses a mixture of fibre-to-the-home and DSL to reach consumers.

According to chief executive officer Stefano Paris, “The first three months of 2006 marked a significant turning point for FASTWEB. The efficiency in the network roll-out process led to the early completion of the geographical coverage. From now on investments will be mainly related to new customer connections with less than one year pay-back time.”

FASTWEB consolidated revenues amounted to EUR 289 million in the first quarter 2006, a 49 per cent increase on the same period in 2005.