MILAN, May 29 (Reuters) - Britain's Vodafone andVimpelcom's Italian mobile phone unit Wind have signed aletter of intent with shareholders of broadband firm Metroweb tobuild a fiber optic network in Italy, the companies said in ajoint statement.
The project is open to other phone operators and investorsready to pursue the goals the Italian government has set in amulti-billion euro plan to roll out a broadband network acrossthe country, they said in the statement on Friday.
A deal would put pressure on Telecom Italia, whichis going ahead with its own investment plan to upgrade itscopper network and bring faster Internet connections to Italianconsumers.
(Reporting by Danilo Masoni, editing by Valentina Za)
Vodafone (VOD)