Greece to Go Ahead With EUR2.1 Billion National Fiber-optic Network
ATHENS -(Dow Jones)- The Greek government announced Wednesday plans to go ahead with a seven-year, EUR2.1 billion-program to build a national fiber-optic network connecting some two million households around the country.
"Greece has decided to make a strategic leap," Communications Minister Costis Hadzidakis said in a statement to reporters. "From where it is now, rather than adopt the intermediate technologies of today, we have decided to adopt future technologies that are already available," he said.
His remarks follow a meeting of the government's interministerial committee on public and private sector projects, which approved the program. As envisioned by the government, Greece would tender three separate concessions to private companies to build and operate fiber-optic networks with speeds of at least 100 megabytes per second, or Mbps, in three separate regions of the country.
Those tenders are expected to be launched in the second half of 2009, according to Hadzidakis.
For years the digital laggard of Europe, Greece has been quickly catching up with fellow European Union member states in liberalizing its telecommunications market and promoting the use of broadband Internet.
According to the latest statistics, broadband Internet penetration in Greece is now 12%, up from 0.1% just four years ago.
-By Alkman Granitsas, Dow Jones Newswires; +30 210 331 2881; alkman.granitsas@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
Posted to the site on 3rd September 2008
