Other than Industry 4.0. According to a survey conducted by the consultancy firm EY (previously known under the name Ernst & Young) on behalf of Corriere Comunicazioni as part of theUltrabroadband Observatory, only a third of the 11 Italian industrial areas surveyed is reached by a fiber optic connection over 30 Mbps. And so, while the country is experimenting with 5G, aiming - above all through the case of Milan - to become a leading player on an international level, it turns out that beyond 7.000 industrial sites do not have enough connection to apply the technological revolution launched by the Industry 4.0 plan desired by Minister Calenda, and that in 1.700 small-sized areas fixed network broadband services are not even available.
The data is definitely alarming: 65% of Italian companies are concentrated in the so-called gray areas, where there is no high-speed connection, and according to government mapping, there are over 19 million street numbers belonging to these areas, corresponding to approximately 25,5 million of real estate units. This photograph casts some shadows on the future of the plan Industry 4.0 baptized by the Minister for Economic Development Carlo Calenda, which after the excellent results - in terms of access by Italian companies to the incentives for super-depreciation linked to the purchase of new generation machinery and platforms - therefore risks suffering a sudden slowdown and failing to obtain the desired results in terms of the all-round digitization of the national industrial sector and the recovery of competitiveness.
It must also be said, however, that the last government (still the Mise) had time to launch the Investment plan for gray areas, which has the objective of achieving the objectives of the European digital agenda as early as 2020 and, by 2025, those put in black and white in the European Commission's Communication on the Giga society. In fact, the public intervention intends to support investment projects in 1 Giga symmetrical speed networks, therefore future proof networks.
The plan is also closely connected with the 5G experimentation, that especially in Milan it is in a very advanced stage and by the end of 2018 it should lead to the coverage of the entire metropolitan area of the Lombard capital, effectively making it the first fully covered European city. The tender for the assignment of frequencies is fixed within the year and in the meantime the experiments started by the Mise in five cities are going ahead: in addition to Milan there are Bari, Matera, L'Aquila and Prato, and Rome was added with the project carried out by the Municipality together with Fastweb and Ericsson.
