The third tender for ultra-broadband in white areas, i.e. market failure, "will be subjected to a further consultation procedure to avoid disputes". This is what the managing director of Infratel, Domenico Tudini, affirmed during a hearing in the Senate on Tuesday afternoon.
With regard to the second tender, the top manager confirmed that the award should take place by the 15th or at the latest the 20th of this month. Responding indirectly to the controversy over the first two tenders, Tudini underlined that "on May 3, 2016, the data and state aid plans were published for thirty days (for the white areas, ed.) and operators were given the opportunity to review their plans. "The areas with public intervention have been indicated and operators have been given a further period of time to be able to integrate their plans".
Instead, Domenuco Arcuri, CEO of Invitalia (which controls Infratel) spoke of the appeals on the tenders: "We salute the fees of the lawyers who had to manage this matter". Arcuri then recalled the huge savings achieved with the first tender, "awarded with a saving of 53% of the amount advertised". So "if we imagined that this percentage of savings was the same in the other two tenders, the State would save around 2,9 billion out of the amount of 1,5 billion".
