By Melissa Kasule
liiad Group has announced it has completed the sale of a 50 per cent stake in iliad’s Polish entity Polski Światłowód Otwarty (PSO) which owns the UPC network infrastructure in Poland to InfraVia.
The joint venture announced in June last year, will be jointly controlled by InfraVia and iliad’s Polish mobile operator Play.
The existing HFC network, which can provide up to 1 Gbps, will be upgraded to incorporate FTTH technology and PŚO’s investment program plans to cover over 6 million households. The existing fiber network and infrastructure will be upgraded to XGS-PON standard, enabling operators to use the PŚO network to provide FTTH Internet connections at speeds of up to 5 Gbps. The existing PŚO network covers households in 14 provinces and almost 200 municipalities in Poland.
The first operators to work with PŚO will be Play and its subsidiary UPC Polska, which service over 1.4 million subscribers on the PŚO network. PŚO will make its network available to all operators based on an open access model.
Iliad’s chief executive officer, Thomas Reynaud said: “This transaction marks a turning point in the growth of the iliad Group’s business in Poland. The partnership with InfraVia will provide a boost for the fixed Internet services market in Poland through an open access model, offering all operators equal access to the country’s largest fiber network, which will eventually cover half of all Polish households. The planned investment program will significantly contribute to the development of Polish regions, cities and industry.”
