Italy’s Grillo backs state lender as main investor in single network project

MILAN: The founder of Italy’s senior coalition party Beppe Grillo called on Rome to ensure a single ultra-fast broadband network is set up swiftly in the country with state lender CDP as the main shareholder in the project.

Italy’s government sees an ultra-fast network as crucial to reviving its economy and is trying to broker a deal to combine the network assets of former monopoly Telecom Italia (TIM) and state-backed rival Open Fiber, jointly owned by Enel and CDP.