Metroweb and tariffs, Telecom Italia relaunches. On the first point, says the CEO Marco Patuano: “We are willing to discuss industrial plans in order to give the current controlling shareholder the opportunity to evaluate not only the sale tout court but the maintenance of their share and the subsequent valorisation. I think it is a proposal – he adds, referring to the one presented by the group to F2i to acquire the stake in Metroweb – of great interest to the controlling shareholder, we will have a discussion shortly ”.
On the second point, Patuano announces that he will present an appeal against yesterday's decision by the Communications Authority which revised downwards the unbundling fee for the 2010-12 period: "It is a luxury that we can no longer afford that of a discrepancy between economic policy objectives and regulatory policy objectives”. The CEO of Telecom underlines the differences between the strategy chosen by the government for 'fiber to home' and the decisions of the Authority. “On a day like this – Patuano said – it is difficult to talk about rules. If we decide to sponsor the Government's project to bring the fiber as close to the customer as possible, we cannot be dystonic in the regulation we are going to define". For Patuano "it is bizarre to talk, on the one hand, about bringing the fiber closer to the customer and on the other hand favoring the presence of more operators in the 'fiber to the cabinet'".
For the fiber network, the spotlight now moves to January. In fact, Agcom's decision will arrive towards the middle of the month, which will be the first strong signal on the concrete possibilities of creating, or not, in a reasonably rapid time, a large fiber optic infrastructure also in Italy, which is being talked about so much these days. For now, the Communications Regulatory Authority (Agcom) has confirmed the reduction in the monthly fee that Olos (operators competing on the fixed network) must pay Telecom Italia to access the last mile in copper.
The decision is retroactive and affects the 2010-2012 tariffs against which the telephone group led by Giuseppe Recchi and Marco Patuano had appealed, losing it first to the Tar and then to the State Council. But he postponed to January the decision on which the spotlights of all operators are focused on the 2014-2017 unbundling tariffs. There are two reasons: to allow time for the reorganization of the top management which has just been launched, which has involved all the front lines of the Authority, to become fully operational; avoid wasting 15 days, those of the slowdown of activity for the Christmas holidays, prolonging the consultation which will open as soon as the new resolution will be voted and published on the Authority's website.
The dossier is particularly relevant at a time when the Italian government presented the national strategy on the fiber with the intention of speeding up the creation of the ultrabroadband up to the customers' homes and to bring the country to the threshold of 100 megabytes, forging ahead with the European Digital Agenda. A plan to facilitate which the State would be willing to invest a token of 6-7 billion to stimulate investments in those commercially less attractive areas and where therefore the operators alone would have difficulty recovering the cost of the investment. At the same time, Vodafone's Spring plan and the Telecom plan are underway, which allocates 3 billion a year to the new network, aimed above all at large cities. And in the background the project to build around Metroweb remains standing, with the
Hence the "compliance" resolution passed by Agcom which for 2012 reduces "the Ull fee to 9,05 euros/month, as a result of the recalculation of corrective maintenance costs; the contributions for the unbundling service - the Agcom note specifies - are placed in a basket distinct from that of the fees and subject to a different price cap. The reduction in the unbundling service fee is also reflected in the values relating to the years 2010 and 2011 - he concludes - which drop to 8,65 and 8,90 euros/month respectively".
This is not good news for Telecom since, according to some estimates, the decision will weigh around 30 million on turnover. Also for this reason attention is now shifting to the January decisions: we will see to what extent the Authority intends to support the network development plans, guaranteeing tariffs capable of remunerating Telecom's investment. Or whether it will confirm a vision with multiple competing networks. Or if the Motroweb model will prevail: a single company for the national fiber network open to all. The "battle" is ongoing, the options are all still open.
