National logistics operator
National logistics operator
Freight logistics and transport
A company specialised in managing critical flows of national and international shipments, with an operational network distributed across more than 200 branches in Italy. It handles thousands of pick-up points and freight-transport operations every day, with a structural need for operational continuity and the elimination of dependence on single connectivity providers.
Sector
Freight logistics and transport
Revenue
Large national operator
Headquarters
Italy (distributed network)
The industry scenario
According to the Cloud Transformation Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, multi-operator architectures with centralised management reduce network operating costs by 25-30% and improve geographic resilience for Italian SMEs and mid-market companies.
Cloud Transformation Observatory — Politecnico di Milano · 2025
Challenge
Operational continuity across a pervasive network
According to the Politecnico di Milano’s Observatory on Digital Transformation in the Logistics and Transport sector (2025), 67% of logistics operators identify operational continuity as a strategic priority, with 42% having suffered significant disruption over the past 24 months due to a single point of failure in network connectivity. The national logistics operator, with over 200 branches and thousands of pick-up points distributed across Italy, faces a critical challenge: ensuring the resilience of the connectivity network over a geographically fragmented infrastructure, eliminating the outage risks arising from dependence on single providers.
Areas of intervention
The critical issue spans four interconnected strategic areas: pervasive geographic coverage, infrastructure redundancy, independence from the commercial constraints of individual operators, and centralised operational management.
Infrastructure redundancy
Dependence on a single connectivity operator exposed the logistics operations to uncontrollable outage risks. A multi-technology, multi-operator architecture was needed to always guarantee an active communication path, regardless of faults or the unavailability of individual providers.
Interconnection between logistics hubs
The customer’s primary data centers, located at geographically separate sites, required a dedicated backbone link with high performance and low latency to sustain the critical data flows of shipping and tracking operations.
Unified network management
The fragmentation of management across multiple operators entailed operational complexity, slow response times and difficulty in scaling. A single point of contact and control was needed, able to govern the entire network perimeter centrally.
Extension across distributed sites
The large number of branches and pick-up points, characterised by heterogeneous infrastructure conditions, required a flexible solution able to adapt to different access technologies and to evolve quickly as territorial needs changed.
Solutions
Multi-technology, multi-operator architecture with centralised governance
Retelit designed and implemented a redundant geographic network infrastructure, integrating optical fibre, radio and 5G across a wide territorial distribution, with unified end-to-end governance to ensure operational continuity and independence from individual operators.
Services activated and technologies
Geographic connectivity
Multi-technology network over a distributed infrastructure
Optical fibre in the main urban centres, complemented by microwave radio and 5G access over the mobile-radio infrastructure for pervasive coverage across around 200 branches. The complementarity of the technologies ensures operational continuity even in the event of a fault on a single network segment.
Data backbone
Dedicated dark fiber with a 10 Gbps Layer 2 link
A high-performance connection between the main corporate data-center nodes over an exclusive infrastructure. It guarantees speed and stability for the critical flows (orders, tracking, warehouse management), enabling operational responsiveness without infrastructure bottlenecks.
Operational governance
Centralised control with a single point of contact
End-to-end network management, VoIP services across all sites and integration of alarm monitoring under a single point of control. A scalable operating model for the rapid extension to new sites, reducing management complexity and dependence on the rigid commercial constraints of individual operators.
Results
Results: operational reliability and infrastructure independence
The multi-technology, multi-operator architecture transformed the network’s resilience profile, eliminating the risks of critical outages and enabling centralised, scalable operational management.
A significant reduction in the risk of interruptions to shipping and goods pick-up activities across the country, thanks to the redundancy of complementary technologies (optical fibre, microwave radio, 5G) distributed over the geographic network.
Independence from the commercial constraints of individual connectivity providers, with the ability to dynamically select the best available connections based on real-time performance at any moment.
A 10 Gbps data-center backbone over dedicated dark fiber that ensures the speed and stability of critical data flows (orders, tracking, warehouse management), improving end-to-end operational responsiveness.
Centralised governance through a single point of contact that simplifies infrastructure control, reduces operational complexity and enables rapid scaling for the extension of connectivity to new sites.
An approach that can be replicated in your sector
Turning network resilience into an operational advantage
Operational continuity requires architectures that reduce outage risks and centralise governance. Discover how to structure a distributed, redundant network for your territory.
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