Fiber optic: operators required to install the best technology, but it’s not yet time to celebrate

The recent approval by the Council of Ministers of the PNRR decree-law marks an important moment for the telecommunications sector in Italy, introducing stringent regulations aimed at consumer protection.

At the heart of the measure is Article 13, titled “Urgent measures for simplification in the field of electronic communications“, which imposes a drastic change of course in the commercial practices of service providers.

The primary objective is transparency: from now on, operators such as TIM, Vodafone or Fastweb cannot be vague anymore about the specifications of the offered connection.

They will by law be required to provide unequivocal details about the available network technology at the user’s address, based necessarily on the geographic mapping database managed by AGCOM.

Operators obliged to use the “true Fiber”, what can go wrong?

This legislative move is designed to counter a widespread practice that has often penalized the end user. In the past, and in several geographic areas, there have been commercial strategies in which operators, for activation-cost saving reasons, offered contracts based on hybrid copper-fiber technologies (FTTC, Fiber to the Cabinet), even where it was technically possible to use pure fiber optic (FTTH, Fiber to the Home).

The performance gap between the two solutions is clear: while copper struggles to exceed 100-200 Mbps, pure fiber operates at standards ranging from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps.

With the new rule, providers are theoretically required to propose the premium solution should it exist in the infrastructure, eliminating the information asymmetry that often left the customer unaware of the real potential of their line.

Despite the laudable intentions of the decree, which will still have to pass parliamentary scrutiny, practical implementation presents structural obstacles that warrant caution.

The unresolved last-mile knot

The central issue lies in the discrepancy between theoretical coverage and actual household connectivity. The Broadband Map of AGCOM, the reference tool for verifying coverage, indicates the presence of fiber at the street address, but does not certify that the cabling has reached the individual housing units.

There is therefore a profound difference between infrastructure coverage, i.e., the presence of cables in the street, and service penetration, which occurs only when the connection enters the apartment.

This technical gap derives from the very architecture of the Italian market, split between wholesale operators like FiberCop and Open Fiber, owners of the physical network, and the consumer companies that manage the relationship with the end user and bear the costs of connection.

Often, a user is theoretically covered, but physically disconnected because the so-called vertical drop or the final leg of the connection is missing.

It will therefore be necessary to verify whether the obligation to activate the best service will push operators to invest concretely to bridge this physical distance or if they will limit themselves to certifying the theoretical availability of the network.

The most recent data released by AGCOM in January 2026 show a fiber coverage reaching 77.6%, a notable jump from 70.7% in the previous year, indicating that Italy is now close to infrastructural saturation, with the exception of only extremely remote areas.

However, the real challenge in the coming months will no longer be laying cables in the streets, but finding a way to bring that signal inside the homes of Italians, turning technical availability into real and high-performing subscriptions.