After years of discussion, on the evening of Wednesday 11 February the State and the Regions reached an agreement on the plan to create a national (and public) fiber optic ultra-broadband network in Italy. The infrastructure – which should be completed in 2020 – it will cost in everything 3,5 billion euros and it will touch 7.300 Municipalities in the areas "to market failure”, those in which private operators have already said they do not want to invest.
The construction will be paid for by the State – which has already entrusted the task to infratel, a 100% Invitalia company, in turn controlled by the Treasury -, but ownership will then pass to the Regions. Private operators will be able to lease the network (probably as early as 2017) to offer their services to around 18 million Italians reached by the new network.
The agreement was reached at the end of a long meeting of the Digital Agenda Commission at the Conference of Regions, which will have to ratify the agreement today. After that, the plan will be notified to the European Commission.
The most controversial point concerned the distribution of funds: 1,557 billion euros nationally (Development and Cohesion Fund) more 1,6 billion euros of European regional funds, to which they add 233 million euro of Pon funds (the national operational program approved by Brussels) in five southern regions, excluding Sardinia.
The 1,6 billion euros were already available in 2014, but to use them a shared national plan was needed, so as to avoid waste by individual local administrations. In particular, the most controversial issue had to do with the coverage of the Centre-North, which has lagged behind on fiber, since public funds (based on European legislation) have so far favored the South.
The Government intends to use most of the new own funds for the Centre-North, but initially the project was opposed by some Southern Regions, since the new development and cohesion fund also foresees that 80% of the resources will be destined for the South.
“The solution found – Paolo Panontin, president of the Digital Agenda Commission, explains to Repubblica.it – is that the South advances these resources to the Centre-North, immediately, to make ultra broadband. But the Government undertakes to return them later in the broader 34 billion euro Development and Cohesion Fund (where broadband is only one of many sectors)”.
Satisfaction also by the president of the Conference of Regions, Stefano Bonaccini: “There is a gap in terms of modernization in this sector that absolutely needs to be filled. Digital growth – he added – is one of the presuppositions of any modern democracy and is a precondition for improving the quality and diffusion of information and participation, and encouraging development”.
“With this agreement – continued Bonaccini – it will be immediately more than one and a half billion available, taking into account the needs, to address the needs of structuring the network especially in the so-called 'white areas', or in those areas so-called 'at risk of bankruptcy', or rather unattractive for operators, thus creating the most favorable conditions for integrated development of fixed and mobile telecommunications infrastructures for the benefit of citizens and our businesses".
“The State-Regions Conference approves the agreement: 3,5 billion for ultra-broadband in 7.300 municipalities. Finally a national strategy, not the sum of territorial plans”. He wrote it the Undersecretary for Economic Development on Twitter with responsibility for the TLCs, Antonello Giacomelli, commenting on the agreement reached today.
An "important result, because it would make it possible to launch part of the government plan concerning the white areas with market failure", the comment instead of Franco Bassanini, president of Metroweb, explaining that precisely for market failure areas "only the contribution of important public resources such as the ERDF and EAFR funds can allow the financing of a new generation infrastructural network that private investors have no interest in financing because the return on investment is totally insufficient.
