Single network, Patuanelli: Italy lagging behind, we need a 'society of networks and technologies'

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10 September 2020 "A company that was born exclusively with fiber can be the starting point but it does not have to be the point of arrival: I see a society of networks and technologies, which can have both fiber and 5G inside , which allows operators to access on equal terms in a regulated market ".

This is what the Minister of Economic Development, Stefano Patuanelli said, speaking of the project launched for the single network at the hearing of the Transport Committee of the Chamber. "This reasoning does not develop in a few weeks and needs the right time, but I think it is essential to have the final goal in mind - he added - and to take the steps in the right direction to achieve that goal. I believe this is a step in the right direction ".

"Yesterday Infratel (an in-house company of the Ministry of Economic Development, the implementing body of the Government's Broadband and Ultra-Broadband Plans, ed.) Made a round table with the operators in the sector to verify the current conditions market: the picture that emerged is of an acceleration of the development of the fiber network, but still lagging behind the objectives. Open Fiber, as known, has announced that the plan will be completed in 2023, in reality the data that Infratel it gives us respect to the executive projects it tells us that 2023 will not be reached either. It is necessary to accelerate and the endowments of the Recovery Fund are a strong channel to be used incisively to implement the network realization path ", he said minister Patuanelli.

"To date, the precise data of the tested municipalities are available on the Infratel portal: 653 municipalities with works started in 2020 - explained Patuanelli - 430 completed, 22 at the end of 2019, 372 municipalities tested in the field in September 2020, 514 tested in September 2020, 739 municipalities opened in derogation from marketing with trials and 492.142 real estate units that can be sold in ftth (fiber at home, ed) and 360.306 in Fwa (fixed wireless access, ed). I asked Infratel to be transparent. constant monitoring there are working groups between Infratel and Open Fiber that try to understand where are the ganglia that do not allow to accelerate. The technical procedural simplification that we have made in the various decrees is helping ".

"To date, despite the known difficulties faced by the designer in charge, Open Fiber has delivered 3,045 executive projects, which guarantee operations until the end of 2021. Design is therefore not an obstacle or an impediment to the implementation of the Bul project by 2023 ", announces Open Fiber with a letter following the statements by Minister Patuanelli to the Chamber.

"In fact, the work with Infratel for acceleration on the basis of the plan presented to Cobul (the coordination committee for the implementation of the plan, ed) is proceeding, which enjoys full financial coverage and provides for the completion of the Plan Bul in 16 Regions in 2022 and in the remaining 4 Regions (for a total of 8% of the total real estate units) in 2023. Objectives that, thanks to all the measures implemented, we confirm that we can achieve ".

"To date, in the areas affected by the Infratel tenders, Open Fiber has started work in about 2,500 municipalities, completed 843 municipalities and made about 950 thousand IU in 828 municipalities available to operators for marketing", concludes the note.

"Digitization is crucial for us. It will produce changes not only in daily life but also in production models. On this, our support is and will be, to promote this massive digitization of the country ".

Thus the managing director of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Fabrizio Palermo, referred to the role of CDP in the creation of the single national fiber optic network, speaking at the presentation of the Turin branch of the institute.

"Our responsibility is to make connectivity available and this generates development opportunities - he added - This is the goal we are setting ourselves and I believe that the conditions are finally being met for this to happen", also with the use of Recovery resources. Fund.

"We believe in it, we are investing and working to make it a possible goal", he concluded.

"The Italian telecommunications industry has always swum against the tide in Europe": "while telecommunications companies in other parts of Europe have spent 20 years complaining that regulators and governments are obsessed with to promote competition, Italy has announced a plan to merge the two networks, effectively recreating a monopolistic broadband provider. The new AccessCo company will be majority controlled by Telecom Italia ".

This is what the 'Financial Times' writes in an article dedicated to the only network in Italy.

The UK business newspaper specifically quotes an industry executive as explaining "they are planning the perfect suicide for fiber" and "re-creating a monster".

Yet the country, writes the 'Financial Times', "is still lagging behind neighboring France and Spain and as Open Fiber began to struggle to achieve rural connection goals over the past three years, a merger with Telecom seemed increasingly The formal talks on the possible forms of integration between the two networks began a year and a half ago but last month the issue finally reached a climax ".

After two weeks of negotiations between the industry and the government, the newspaper emphasizes, "the Kkr agreement was approved last week, along with the most significant agreement to join the Telecom network with Open Fiber to create AccessCo. Cdp he was a key player in the talks. "

Nick Read, CEO of the Vodafone group, in a long speech on Politico launches accusations against the Italian government on the management of the single network issue.

With the merger of the TIM network with Open Fiber, we return "to a failed monopoly model that cannot be good for either competition or investment. It also violates four decades of anti-monopoly policy and European Union law", says Read .

"In Italy, the government is trying to recreate in the country the fixed network monopoly that previous governments and EU institutions had dismantled over time. The government has long been looking for a way to consolidate the fixed network of Telecom Italia, a former state monopoly , with Open Fiber, a network company that sells exclusively wholesale fiber controlled by the government. This would leave potential fixed broadband providers with only one seller of wholesale access to the combined network, again Telecom Italia. 'wholesalers of Open Fiber, including Vodafone, should compete with Telecom Italia's fixed retail broadband offers with no other option than to buy wholesale access from them. "

Read also recalls that "creating any form of competition in the Italian fixed market has been notoriously difficult; only with the establishment of Open Fiber, a few years ago, Italy began to modernize its fixed networks, providing more high-speed services. comparable to those of other EU member countries ".