Mediaset calls, Tim answers. On the single network and possible partners for the project, Tim's CEO Luigi Gubitosi chose Cernobbio to reply to the Biscione who, in recent days, had said he was interested in entering into the affair if the Gasparri Law, which sets the limits to crossings between media and TLC. An exit that had made interest in the television company jump after the decision of the EU Court which agreed with Vivendi, precisely believing that the limits established by Agcom and by Italian law are not compatible with the European one.
"It is not clear to me the benefit of a content user to participate“, is therefore the answer with which Gubitosi has frozen the expectations of a transversal risk on the single network. “I don't think this will affect the project directly at least any reasonably soon,” Gubitosi said. “If Netflix says it wants to buy 2%, for example, this will be evaluated but the advantage of a user in participating is not clear to me,” said Gubitosi, extending the concept by analogy to Mediaset or Rai. “Even if the theme of the single network is 'suggestive' at this stage – he concluded referring to the decision of the EU Court – the agreement on the single network is previous and has no connection with this theme”.
As for Enel, "there are no closures in principle to anyone but it has always said that if there had been an industrial partner it would not be interested in being a minority partner" stated Luigi Gubitosi again, answering a question on the hypothesis that Enel, shareholder of Open Fiber at 50%, can enter directly into the shareholding structure of the single network company. “If you were interested, that too would be evaluated”.
Diplomatically Francesco Starace, CEO of Enel, he had glossed over a similar question shortly before during a previous press conference on the circular economy and its potential for growth. “We are interested in wiring, the rest less so. It can be seen from the rankings how late Italy is in terms of connectivity”.
On governance Gubitosi specified that in society "we do not want to have control, governance will be shared", with a very strong presence of the State through CDP“. As for the times for the contractual agreements with Cdp, the forecast of the CEO is that "they will be quick". Other potential partners? “Some major operators have declared themselves in favor of this model, in the case of Fastweb not only will it enter into co-investment but also into capital, we expect others to do so as well”. Sky, Vodafone and Wind Tre , it should be recalled, have expressed their interest on condition that the absolute independence of AccessCo is guaranteed.
According to a study carried out by The European House – Ambrosetti on behalf of Tim and presented in Cernobbio , the deployment of ultra-broadband in Italy can activate up to an additional 180 billion of GDP by 2030. The benefits enabled by connectivity - explains the dossier - are transversal to all economic sectors and to society".
