“We cannot miss this opportunity to change the subject of the Digital Agenda”. Thus Antonio Catricalà, Deputy Minister of Economic Development, reaffirmed the commitment of the Letta government to respect the commitments made in the digital field. He did it during the round table with Agcom organized in Rome by Business International and Fiera Milano Media.
In particular – as explained by Francesco Caio, Government commissioner for the implementation of the digital agenda – the Executive intends to speed up on three fronts: the creation of the national registry (unifying all municipal registries), digital identity (which will simplify e-gov services) and electronic invoicing (by June 2014 the PA will only be able to receive invoices in this format). These are measures that "will make it possible to rationalize management costs - Caio specified -, ensuring that the spending review is increasingly targeted and allows for the release of resources to be reallocated elsewhere".
However, the challenge does not only concern the efficiency of the Public Administration. There are other major difficulties: the European Horizon 2020 plan (financed yesterday by Brussels with 77 billion euros) requires that within the next seven years all countries guarantee a 30 megabit internet connection to 100% of the network and a 100 megabit internet connection to 50 %. Catricalà said he was "sure that these are achievable goals for Italy", also because "the public money allocated for this purpose will not be affected: on the contrary, funds arriving from Europe will be added, while individual operators will have the certainty of return on their investment.
However, not everyone is so optimistic. If Agostino Ragosa – general manager of the Agency for Digital Italy – estimates the figure necessary to implement the Agenda at around 10 billion, Professor Maurizio Dècina, professor of Telecommunications at the Milan Polytechnic, believes that with the same resources it is possible aiming to obtain "50% of homes connected, with coverage of 80% of the territory" in seven years, since "the Horizon objectives are absolutely unattainable".
The doubts arise from the current conditions in Italy, which are quite distant from those of the EU average. Just last June 30, for example, in our country there were 2,5 million people without an internet connection. In general - according to European data - broadband coverage does not exceed 14% of the Italian territory, against 54% of the European average.
A picture that does not simplify the strategic choices to which telecommunications companies are called: "In this phase, only operators who will be able to increase structural investments in their network will be able to survive - said Laura Rovizzi, managing director of Open Gate Italia –. The role of Telecom Italia, by now the only Italian operator, is decisive for the achievement of the objectives of Horizon 2020. This is why the regulator must encourage investments, for example through a review of network costs and the rearrangement of frequencies”.
The call to invest has already been accepted by Vodafone Italy, which announced in mid-November to want to double the allocation for the next two years, bringing it to 3,6 billion euro. “We intend to use these resources to extend 3G and 4G technologies to the entire national territory and to develop the fiber optic network – explained the president Pietro Guindani -. We have to invest. There is no alternative”.
