Tommaso Pompei, managing director of Enel open fiber, has requested a hearing from Agcom. According to the Radiocor agency, this would be an initial contact between the Authority and the newco for optical fiber created by Enel at the end of December.
The hearing request comes after the latest government decisions on the creation of a public network for market failure areas. Infratel (an in-house company of the Ministry of Economic Development) will therefore remain the owner of the network, while its construction will be put out to tender.
This means that Enel, in the event that it won the tenders for the construction of the infrastructure, would no longer become the owner of the network (as envisaged in the past for those who won tenders) but could only lay out the dark fiber and maintain it.
To bring the service to Italian homes, it will then be necessary to rent the dark fiber to the operators, who will also "turn it on". From the outset, the priority of the possible intervention of the new company Enel Open Fiber was identified precisely in the infrastructure of the market failure areas.
Telephone operators, such as Vodafone and Wind, said they were ready to join the newco created by Enel. The possibility of a joint venture, with the latest decisions announced by the Government, would now seem to have disappeared. Enel has applied to play a role in the development of ultra-broadband in Italy as part of the electricity meter replacement plan.
