EOLO Bridges Digital Divide With CERAGON

Italy is by far the largest “digital divide” country in Western Europe. According to Eurostat, the Italian fixed broadband market as of 2018 is still under-penetrated, with only 60% of households having access to broadband internet. This low take-up rate, as opposed to 77% on average in Europe, is due to low population density scattered over a large area. Italy also has a diverse geography with many mountains, islands, hills and valleys. Even though this diversity is extremely charming and picturesque, it’s a nightmare from the infrastructure point of view to deliver a broadband connection to each house in these areas.

To address the problem of the digital divide and to connect areas of Italy previously not connected, EOLO has created its own transport network with a dream to bring broadband everywhere in Italy. The dream received enormous financial support from the government, and EOLO has been awarded numerous tenders to bring broadband to the northern, central and southern regions of Italy.

THE CHALLENGES

Support Italy’s national plan to deliver ultra-broadband connectivity for the residential and business markets| Provide high performance in underserved areas | Simplify installation and commissioning

To enable ultra-fast internet services where other operators do not provide them, EOLO required a highly reliable, easy to install and maintain wireless backhaul infrastructure. While providing broadband to local residents and businesses was the primary driver, EOLO also strived to facilitate new jobs creation by fostering growth and competitiveness in those regions. The internet service provider needed to deliver high capacity in extremely low populated areas and to ensure a high level of link availability at all times.

THE SOLUTION

All-outdoor sites | Remotely upgradable solution (multicore technology) | Low power consumption

To connect homes and businesses across Italy that cannot be reached by fiber and ADSL/VDSL, EOLO adopted Ceragon’s FibeAir IP-20C multicore solution. By partnering with Ceragon and successfully implementing it’s highly resilient transmission solution, EOLO significantly reduced its overall operating expenses while maintaining its innovation-oriented DNA. An extremely fast and flexible network rollout helped integrate underserved areas with the rest of the country, and created new opportunities for local residents and governmental organizations alike.

Ceragon’s all-outdoor wireless backhaul solution enabled EOLO to:

• Maximize territorial coverage of Italy and justify infrastructure investments
• Offer reliable high internet speeds up to 1.6Gbps to its subscribers at affordable prices by leveraging Ceragon’s multicore radio units
• Save significant OPEX spending by reducing tower or roof-top equipment footprint by 50% with dual-core configurations
• Shorten the duration for site acquisition and site connectivity (backhaul) by 50%, by eliminating the need for indoor rack space for the networking unit or for a shelter used for other equipment
• Reduce power consumption by 70% and increase power efficiency, since the lack of an indoor unit eliminates the need for an air-conditioning system and its power consumption
• Provide their customers with the highest level of service availability on the market
• Achieve significantly faster time to market

By leveraging Ceragon’s technology, EOLO continuously expands its coverage and introduces new value-added services for its residential and enterprise markets. Bringing ultra-broadband connection enriches EOLO’s product portfolio by: offering streaming and online gaming packages to its private customers; and providing more advanced services like router installation, dedicated support and guaranteed high speed to its enterprise subscribers.