The announcement of the opening of the tender for the provision of ultra-fast broadband (UFBB) services in the country was made on Tuesday by Minister of Electronic Governance Kyriakos Pierrakakis.
The project is one of the largest public-private partnership (PPP) projects in Europe with a budget of 700 million euros, of which 300 million euros comes from public funding.
The goal of the project is to establish 750,000 high-speed Internet connections at 100 Mbps, upgradeable to 1 Gbps, in line with the guidelines of the EU’s “Connecting for a European Gigabit Society” plan.
The ministry’s digital transformation plan, along with the UFBB project and others funded by the EU Recovery Fund, includes the implementation of 5G data lines, the development of submarine cables, as well as internal infrastructure and microsatellites.
The project plans to provide high-bandwidth broadband services for approximately 2,400,000 residents.
The new project is:
bridging the digital divide in the regions of Greece, developing a next generation broadband infrastructure based on the European Commission’s 2025 broadband targets in the context of the policy “Connectivity for a European Gigabit Society”; creating an enabling environment for private investment that will focus on expanding and penetrating next generation infrastructure to achieve a “step change” in broadband accessibility in regions and markets where there is little or no interest in developing related infrastructure and services.
Connection services:
At least 98% of the active population will be provided with two categories of broadband services in regions where UFBB infrastructures are deployed, namely:
Class A: connection with a bandwidth of at least 100 Mbps, upgradeable to 1 gigabit. Class B: a connection with a bandwidth of at least 100 Mbps.
Recipients:
Citizens (individuals / private users and business users) are denied access to high-performance internet connections. Socio-economic actors and locations in the intervention zones where high-speed Internet services at 1 Gbps are required.
Coverage areas:
The total number of targeted active lines is about 812,155, which includes areas not covered by private investment plans of telecom providers.
During the project implementation period, technological neutrality will be taken into account, as well as avoiding any distortion of competition in the market or suspension of planned private investments, while ensuring the sustainability of investments.
The Superfast Broadband Project does not include SFBB regions or Rural Broadband regions.
Investment implementation scheme:
The project will be implemented under a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.
Development and concession period:
The total duration of the project is estimated at up to 20 years. The first 3 years correspond to the development of the network infrastructure, and the remaining 17 years will be required to operate and provide services.
Financing:
The project is co-financed by structural and investment funds of the European Union and the national partnership agreement “ESPA” for 2014-2020.
Total budget of the action:
The total project budget is 870 million euros (including VAT).
Co-financing of public expenditures is EUR 300,000,000.
€ 265 million in funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship, Innovation 2014-2020; € 35 million comes from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) and the Rural Development Program (RDP) 2014-2020.
Performance
The project is being implemented by the ICT Sector Executing Agency ESIF under the Ministry of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media.
Offer and work organization:
The owner of the superfast broadband project is the General Secretariat for Telecommunications and Postal Services (GSTP) of the Ministry of Digital Policy, Telecommunications and Media.
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