Imagine the future comfortably sitting in the seat of your V2G electric car, which stands for vehicle to grid, or the mobility ecosystem that brings together telecommunications with the ability to exchange energy with the network, charging our car when needed, returning electrons to the local or national electricity system when the network is overloaded. An intelligent battery system in the intelligent car, always connected to 5G or 6G broadband networks. What better example of the convergence, perhaps even the fusion, between the two worlds?
The strategists are at work, the companies too. To enjoy it, unfortunately from the afterlife, is first of all that visionary Franco Tatò, who as strategist-commander of our Enel in the last part of the old millennium wanted to experiment with the strong entry of our national electricity operator into the world of new telecommunications driven by mobile phones, convinced that the future of industry and business was precisely that of multi-utilities capable of anticipating the evolution of technology and markets. Tatò burned the times. Wind was born in the belly of Enel, which then separated from it making a good deal. Now he's having second thoughts. Because the times are fully proving the harsh genius of "Kaiser Franz" right.
Today's examples? Trends? The future? Here then is a review of the new world that is born.
Telephones, electricity and gas: the debut of cross offers
All the main energy and telecommunications operators, driven by the end of the "greater protection" electricity and gas contracts administered by the Authority, have put their hands forward. Either with commercial agreements to be offered in synergy, or with the real firsts “package” offers.
The debut is due to WindTre, which entered the electricity and gas market at the beginning of last year with an offer in commercial collaboration with Acea Energia and is now also making its debut in the insurance policies created for its customers by NET Insurance. Then she even came forward Poste Italiane, already active in cellular telecommunications as a virtual operator on the Vodafone network. Its electricity and gas offer, managed in collaboration with sector operators, is structured on offers with a fixed price for one year or on the "fixed instalment" formula with scheduled price and consumption, with refunds or subsequent increases in the event of deviations.
Fixed installment formulas commensurate with planned consumption with subsequent adjustments are proposed (for now only for electricity) by Fastweb, which has created a specific "Energy" division from which it hopes to obtain as many as 150 million euros in additional revenues in three years. This is – specifies Fastweb – fully certified electricity green, currently purchases from AXPO, AGSM, AIM and EcoTrade and resold with the commercial and technological collaboration of the Salerno operating partner Startup service. CEO Walter Renna even ventures the possibility of a direct entry into electricity generation: "we won't rule it out in the future". We will talk about it when Fastweb sees its structures and horizons grow in a few months with the full operation of the just announced acquisition of Vodafone Italia.
Energy companies also respond with a similar strategy. Starting by Enel which attempts to quickly recover the original vision of the multi-utility, debuting for now only in landline telephones with the fiber optic connections made available by the new Italian players, starting with OpenFiber. The same for Poste Italiane, which thus simultaneously spreads its wings on energy, landline and cellular telephony, conquering the not inconsiderable dimension of the multi-utility par excellence. And other operators and energy sellers such as Sorgenia and Illumia are also gradually making their debut in fiber optic contracts.
But the new cross formulas they really agree to the consumer? Additional advantages are however reserved for those who are already customers (Fastweb guarantees, for example, a discount of five euros per month for its electricity contracts to those who already have a TLC contract), but the offers must still be checked in detail, with the procedures, the tools and the cautions that FIRSTonline periodically offers to its readers.
The marriage of networks first and then services
Marketing strategists design strategies, but it is technology that enables the new world. The technological platforms of both sectors evolve in sync, with a mix of digitalisation and artificial intelligence which rapidly brings the technology of the two services together under the banner of advanced cognitive models. The languages become closer, the applications intersect and in many cases merge. Already about ten years ago, analysts were profiling a rapid generalized convergence at multiple levels between services, infrastructures, and contents in the name of interaction between them and with the human user. Now we're really taking off.
Power plants and zonal distribution control units, large telecommunications backbones and related distribution networks and then the user equipment. All in the name of a common factor. The IP addresses, that is, the numerical codes identifying each device, mark every grain of technology that populates both the world of energy and that of telecommunications. This is the main element of fusion of the whole, which gives reason and substance to the progressive fusion of the two worlds.
In practice, for us users-consumers? Let's think about the control, programming and reading systems of the latest electronic meters that are also entering our homes for both electricity and gas, with their virtual SIM cards, their antennas or their ability to transmit telematic signals through power lines. Ready to collaborate and integrate, in their further evolutions, with the hundreds or thousands of applications made possible by the new cellular networks 5G broadband and in a few years 6G.
Machines, and not just cars, talk to each other and to the world of services, offering the citizen customer who knows what amazing applications and opportunities. From integration with domestic surveillance equipment to predictive intelligence on possible failures of home appliances or, more simply, capable of assisting us with normal domestic needs. Let's think about simple control devices already able to do so today save quite a bit in the energy management of our homes. Or the flurry of applications, even vaguely disturbing ones, that appear on the horizon, such as the smart refrigerator that sends us a message if there is no butter or low milk. Will it be energy or will it be telecommunications? Answer: it will be the new world. In industry, in businesses and in what will come to us.
