Vodafone has stepped up roll-out of its HSPA-based mobile broadband services in Italy and has pledged to cover a different region each month during this year. The project will target rural areas of the country that are currently underserved by fixed-line broadband, some 8 percent of the country in terms of population. According to Vodafone Italia CEO, Paolo Bertoluzzo, in three years and with investment of less than €500 million, it would be possible to reduce to 1 percent the proportion of the Italian population not reached by broadband. The project has started in Olevano, in the southern province of Salerno, and offers peak download speeds of 7.2Mb/s.

According to Wireless Intelligence data, Vodafone Italia had 1.3 million HSPA mobile broadband connections by the end of 2008 – some 4 percent of its total – making it the fifth largest operator in Europe in terms of HSPA connections. Italy is the leading HSPA market in Europe with some 5.3 million connections by the end of 2008. Almost half of these (2.4 million) relate to the Italian market-leader, TIM.