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Two of the founders of Fastweb in Italy are planning to repeat their success story in Greece, where On Telecoms is challenging incumbent OTE. Alan Burkitt-Gray talks to CEO Ruggero Gramatica
Ruggero Gramatica: local loop can support 10 megabits
The team that challenged Telecom Italia by launching Fastweb five years ago is moving on to another target in the Mediterranean world: Greece.
Emanuele Angelidis and Ruggero Gramatica have set up On Telecoms, headquartered in Athens, to take on the incumbent, OTE, and offer broadband in a market which has a penetration that is among Europe's lowest.
"There was 2% penetration of broadband in 2006," says Gramatica, who became CEO in February 2007. Angelides is CEO of the parent company, based in the Netherlands, and is vice chairman of the Greek operation.
"This year penetration will be 5% and we see a very steep ramp up to 10-15% in a year," says Gramatica, who was founding partner and chief information officer of Fastweb when it was set up in Milan to take on the might of Telecom Italia.
Before that he was one of the founders of Omnitel, the Italian mobile phone business that later became part...