Info Image

EIB Provides €360 Million to Italy's TIM with SACE Guarantee for 5G Network Expansion

EIB Provides €360 Million to Italy's TIM with SACE Guarantee for 5G Network Expansion Image Credit: TIM

The European Investment Bank (EIB) — partly assisted by a SACE guarantee — last Friday announced their support for TIM in the development of the next-generation network infrastructure in Italy with a €360 million loan, which will be used to finance the expansion of 5G coverage. The agreement was finalised today by EIB Vice-President Gelsomina Vigliotti and TIM CEO Pietro Labriola, together with SACE Chief Business Officer Bernardo Attolico.

The EIB financing, 60% guaranteed by SACE, confirming the strategic nature of the investments, will enable TIM to expand 5G coverage across Italy by the end of 2025 using 700 MHz bands. The operation supports the objectives of the 2030 Digital Decade, the EU programme defining digital ambitions for the next ten years, including developing secure and sustainable digital infrastructure, the digital transformation of businesses, and the digitalisation of public services.

In addition, the financing will allow the TIM Group to have access to a debt instrument on more favourable terms than those offered on the bond banking market.

The EIB has provided over €1 billion in financing for TIM projects between 2019 and 2023. These loans come under the EIB’s main areas of activity, namely developing and supporting the telecommunications network infrastructure, bridging the digital divide, meeting the targets of the Digital Agenda for Europe, and helping the EU’s most disadvantaged regions.

In 2022, SACE joined a pool of financial institutions under the ‘Garanzia Italia’ framework to guarantee a €2 billion loan granted to TIM to support investment in Italy planned under the Group’s business plan.

Author

Principle Analyst and Senior Editor | IP Networks

Ariana specializes in IP networking, covering both operator networks - core, transport, edge and access; and enterprise and cloud networks. Her work involves analysis of cutting-edge technologies that drive application visibility, traffic awareness, network optimization, network security, virtualization and cloud-native architectures.

She can be reached at ariana.lynn@thefastmode.com

PREVIOUS POST

Movandi Secures $27 million in Funding to Accelerate Real World 5G mmWave Deployments

NEXT POST

Tarana Secures $50M to Accelerate Expansion