Open Fiber Expands With Metroweb Acquisition, Uses Huawei's Monitoring Tech

Open Fiber, the Italian wholesale FTTH access network operator set up by power utility Enel, has closed the acquisition of Metroweb for €714 million (US$749 million).

The deal was first agreed in July and the details finalized in October. The new combined company is jointly owned by Enel and Italian state funding company CDP Equity SpA. (See Eurobites: Italy's Enel in $2.8B FTTH Plan.)

National operator Telecom Italia had also been interested in acquiring Metroweb, which is building fiber access networks in Milan, Genoa, Bologna and Turin, to further its own FTTH ambitions, but Open Fiber won the duel to close the deal.

The acquisition is part of Open Fiber's plans to build an extensive wholesale FTTH network across more than 200 cities that can be used by multiple retail broadband service providers to reach more than 9.5 million homes. The initial Open Fiber rollout targets Bari, Cagliari, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Naples, Padua, Palermo, Perugia and Venice.

With planning and network construction underway, Huawei has won a deal to supply its N2510 optical fiber link assurance technology to Open Fiber for service provisioning, network acceptance tests and fault diagnosis. (See Huawei N2510 Wins Bid for Italy's Enel OpEn Fiber Project, Assuring Fast Construction of FTTH Networks.)

Huawei has been scoring a variety of broadband-related deals in Europe recently: It just announced a deal to provide a 4K TV platform and decoders to Norwegian ultra-broadband access network operator Altibox; and is working with another Italian access operator, Fastweb, on its 5G plans that make use of its fiber access network. (See Italy's Fastweb Rolls Out 1Gbit/s FTTH for 5G Small Cell Support.)

— Ray Le Maistre, , Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading