What are the white, black and gray areas? How to choose your Internet connection

The Internet connection is now essential for everyone and the need, especially following the pandemic, to have a good connection at home or in the office has become urgent.
Despite this, not everyone knows that in Italy, in relation to ultra-broadband, there are white, gray and black Internet areas based on which we choose the Internet connection best suited to our needs.
But what does white, black and gray area mean? How do they affect the choice of connection? Let's see what the difference is between white, gray and black areas, let's clarify the definitions of ultra-broadband, optical fiber and ADSL and analyze all the aspects to evaluate when choosing the Internet connection.
To facilitate this process, Facile.it provides an Internet offer comparison service that is useful for anyone who needs to choose an Internet provider for their home.
The white, gray and black areas were identified and defined in 2013 by the European Commission in reference to the investments made available by telecommunications operators in the various areas of the Peninsula until 2022.
To understand what the white, gray and black areas are, it is necessary to be careful not to overlap the concept of area with that of Municipality.
An area, in fact, does not correspond to a Municipality, the latter, on the contrary, can have multiple areas within it.
On 3 April 2019, the European Commission approved the "large national ultra-broadband project" (BUL) for which it allocated approximately 941 million euros with the aim of ensuring adequate Internet coverage in less well-provided areas.
Let's see what the white, gray and black areas are, how to choose the best Internet connection and what the alternatives to Fiber and ADSL are.
What is a white Internet area These are areas with low population density, in which operators are not interested in investing and are, therefore, characterized by the absence of ultra-broadband infrastructure.
In these areas (villages, coastal areas, mountain villages) state intervention and the use of public economic resources are necessary to guarantee a fast Internet connection.
Furthermore, due to the absence of ultra-broadband connections, the inhabitants of white Internet areas cannot use technologies such as fiber optics or ADSL.
What is an Internet Gray Area Gray areas, as the name suggests, fall somewhere between white areas and black areas.
These are those areas in which at least one telecommunications operator invests in ultra-broadband, but for which further investments are unlikely.
The presence of only one operator on the market could lead customers to accept very high costs for the ultra-broadband connection service, for this reason, the State will have to, evaluating case by case, decide where and to what extent to intervene.
What is a black Internet area? Black Internet areas are areas with high population density where at least two operators, each with their own network, have invested in ultra-broadband infrastructure.
In particular, in the black Internet areas there are two or more operators that provide infrastructure for ultra-broadband connection, consequently, they are areas in which there are no coverage problems and for which no state aid is foreseen.
How to choose the Internet connection? The choice of Internet connection cannot ignore the evaluation of the area.
In fact, not all areas have ultra-broadband connections available.
This connection uses technology capable of transmitting a large amount of data at high speeds.
The speed varies depending on the operator and starts from a minimum of 30 Mb/s up to 1 Gbps.
The broadband connection can be provided through optical fibre, a specific type of technology that uses small glass or plastic cables and which guarantees the transmission of large quantities of data much faster and more reliably than traditional ADSL, which it relies on the telephone network and whose speed varies based on the distance from the exchange.
To choose the most convenient Internet connection suited to your needs, below are some aspects to take into consideration.
Let's see what you need to evaluate and what can help you save time and effort.
Network coverage.
The first thing to do is check which technology covers the area where you live.
Not all areas can make use of technologies such as fiber optics or ADSL.
How the Internet is used.
Before comparing prices you need to take into consideration what and to what extent the Internet will be used.
Fixed telephone service.
Another fundamental step before comparing prices is to evaluate whether you need to have a landline telephone line at home or in the office.
Speed.
The download and upload speed with which you want to browse must also be taken into consideration.
To test your current speed, take a Speed Test.
Cost comparison.
To ensure the most convenient offer, you need to compare the prices offered by the different operators.
Through the Facile.it Internet offer comparison tool it is possible to compare prices, but not only.
Once you have provided your residence address, Facile.it checks the network coverage and related technology available in the area.
Subsequently, it chooses the best solutions based on the declared consumption habits and allows you to choose whether to sort the results by price or by connection speed.
Finally, the Facile.it Internet offer comparison service filters the results based on whether or not the calls need to be included in the package and based on the method with which the payment will be made.
White area: which connection to choose? For all those who live in an area that is still white, having a fast Internet connection remains particularly difficult but, between wireless and satellite Internet, there is no shortage of solutions.
The wireless connection allows devices to communicate with each other through radio waves rather than cables, using FWA (Fixed wireless access) technology and allowing Internet access even in areas not served by optical fiber or ADSL.
Satellite Internet, as the name indicates, sends the signal to the satellite when you request Internet access.
The latter forwards it to a ground station which finally connects the signal to the global Internet network.
Facile.it, in addition to providing the price comparison service, reports on its website the speeds expected from the different offers for these two types of technologies: Eolo: up to 30 Mb/s in download or up to 200 Mb/s.
Linkem : up to 100 Mb/s download or up to 200 Mb/s Tim: up to 40 Mb/s download or up to 100 Mb/s Fastweb: up to 100 Mb/s.