Launching an Ultra-Fast 5G FWA Network: EOLO CEO on Driving Inclusive Digital Growth Across Italy

As Italy accelerates its digital transformation, EOLO is playing a strategic role in shaping widespread connectivity nationwide. At the end of 2025, EOLO launched its new ultra-fast 5G fixed wireless broadband (FWA) network, capable of delivering speeds of up to 1 Gbps. EOLO’s CEO Guido Garrone talked about the key factors behind a successful launch and the plans going forward. He also shared how EOLO is taking advantage of AI opportunities.

Looking back on 2025, what achievements would you highlight for EOLO, and how have they contributed to the company's growth?

Looking back on 2025, one of the most significant milestones for EOLO has been the launch of our new ultra-fast 5G FWA network, capable of delivering speeds of up to 1 Gbps. This new infrastructure was developed in Italy together with ZTE and other leading international technology partners. The network has been activated in more than 300 municipalities across Italy, bringing high-speed connectivity to thousands of families and businesses. Over the coming months, we will continue to progressively extend coverage to smaller towns and rural communities, further strengthening our mission to bridge both the digital divide and the digital speed divide.

What are the key success factors behind the successful launch of your 5G standalone mmWave network, and what are the next steps?

The successful launch of our new 5G standalone mmWave network was driven by a solid ecosystem of leading international technology partners and a clear strategic focus on innovation and execution. EOLO fully leverages the inherently virtualized nature of 5G CNFs by distributing the User Plane Function (UPF) as close as possible to customers, resulting in one UPF per 5G radio tower and thereby ensuring very

low latencies. In particular, the UPF has been implemented within EOLO’s proprietary BLU Router, which is installed in each 5G radio tower, making the UPF highly distributed. This approach has made it possible to integrate the 5G infrastructure into EOLO’s existing proprietary Automated Traffic Engineering systems, which can dynamically re-route 5G traffic based on transport network load. The success of this project has also been achieved by implementing an intent-driven, TM Forum standards-based automation fabric using network orchestrator, ensuring a flawless experience at every touchpoint of the customer journey. EOLO believes that, in order to convey the quality of the service, it is equally necessary to invest effort and innovation in customers’ Wi-Fi networks. For example, we are providing customers with Wi-Fi 7 HAG devices, including the ZTE H6700 router.

As for the next steps, our priority is the continued expansion of the 5G standalone mmWave network across Italy, progressively extending coverage to additional municipalities and further accelerating digital inclusion, particularly in smaller towns and underserved areas, by delivering a true fiber-like service experience in territories that are not and will not be served by Fiber FTTH. Moreover, we are focusing on optimizing the Wi-Fi signal inside the house or building. In parallel, we plan to extend the reach of the new technology from the current 6 kilometers to 11 kilometers in the short term and to 15 kilometers in the medium term.

How would you describe EOLO’s role in Italy’s digitalization process?

EOLO’s mission is to enable people and businesses to enjoy the best possible digital experience every day, by delivering excellent connectivity “wherever there is a town” (“ovunque ci sia un paese”). By focusing on small towns and rural communities, EOLO actively contributes to bridging the digital divide and ensuring that families, professionals and SMEs can fully participate in the country’s digital transformation. Through continuous investment in advanced FWA and 5G technologies, EOLO supports local economic development and digitalization, acting as a strategic enabler of more inclusive and widespread digital growth across Italy.

In your previous interview, you mentioned cultural barriers in connecting underserved communities. How are you addressing these barriers to push FWA forward?

EOLO works closely with local administrations, schools, and local businesses to demonstrate how high-speed connectivity can improve daily life and boost local businesses and the digitalization of public administrations. By tailoring our communication and support to the specific needs of each community, we foster trust in digitalization. At the same time, our user-friendly installation processes and dedicated local customer support make the technology accessible, minimizing technical barriers and encouraging adoption. In this way, EOLO ensures that FWA is not just available, but effectively embraced, giving a strong push to the country’s digitalization, in line with the objectives of the European Digital Agenda 2030.

What opportunities does AI bring to the FWA sector, and what impact does it have on EOLO?

In FWA, AI’s biggest opportunity is to improve service quality and customer’s experience while keeping human experts firmly in control.

At EOLO, we’ve built this on long-term data foundations. Our new 5G standalone network was designed from day one to continuously stream telemetry. These feeds support both real-time closed-loop actions and the creation of rich historical datasets. We consolidate these network data with customer and external data into a single, geospatially anchored enterprise data platform so AI agents can correlate what happens across domains, act with the right context and learn over time.

Our AI strategy is designed to augment human capabilities and scale EOLO’s unique know-how. We have introduced RAG and are progressively adopting multi-agent autonomous patterns, where AI agents operate within a structured, standards-based and controlled decision-making framework that ensures explainability, safe reversibility and tight human oversight. We assess AI’s impact through tangible operational outcomes: cost reduction, higher first-call resolution, faster time to repair and an improved customer experience. In parallel, we are initiating the adoption of a Small Language Model to strengthen data security and keep sensitive operational knowledge protected, while still making it usable at scale.