Cell phones and the Internet, who would have thought: the arrival of Iliad in Italy is no longer scary. What had been presented as the most formidable of competitors, with potentially devastating effects on the economic accounts of Tim, Vodafone and to a lesser extent on those of Wind-3, about to land in Italy with Free and its aggressive commercial policy of cutting prices for both phone calls and Internet surfing seems to have vanished; its entry into the field seems delayed compared to the initially announced roadmap which gave it operational at the end of 2017 with its fearsome (for competitors) bargain rates.
In January 2018 the appointment of the twenty-nine-year-old CEO Benedetto LevThose. the new forecast of a start before the summer. Then stop communications, apart from a recent tweet that showed a photo of a future Iliad store in a shopping center in Catania.
What happen? The French operator will use in Italy the frequencies vacated by the Wind-3 merger with which it expects to cover 75% of the territory and will roam the rest (on other people's networks). But the Iliad rebus could surprise an unexpected motivation: it is ZTE, the second Chinese giant manufacturer of telecommunications equipment and terminals after Huawei as well as supplier of the Wind network on which Iliad relies, to have slowed down (some say even stopped) the pace. Blame Donald Trump and his ban that prohibits American manufacturers from supplying components to the Chinese giant. In other words, it would be a "side effect" of the trade war between the US and China with chain repercussions also in our house.
THE BACKGROUND
In April The US Commerce Department has issued a Denial Order that prevents US companies from selling components and technologies to ZTE for the next 7 years. All this despite the payment by the Chinese manufacturer, in March, of a fine of 900 million for having sold products containing US technology to states affected by the trade sanctions decided at the time in Washington, such as Iran and North Korea. A controversy that therefore dates back a long time but which exploded, coincidentally, precisely at the moment of most acute tension in trade relations between Washington and Beijing and ended up in the middle of the battle with retaliatory blows on duties for soybeans, steel and quant other, which reached its climax at the end of April. For ZTE it was a setback given that the US components it buys mainly from Qualcomm and Intel account for up to 1 third of its products. And on May 8, the Chinese giant, which until then had experienced constant and dazzling expansion, had to stop: a halt to production activities in America. The announcement came along with the statement that negotiations are continuing to convince the US administration to revise or remove the decree.
THE DOMINO EFFECT IS ILIAD-FREE
The announcement caused an uproar and Reuters, gleaning American sources, ha published on May 9 a report according to which the backlash of the ban wanted by Trump - a wound not recently inflicted on the Chinese opponent - could actually cause a wider production stop with difficulties in the supply of mobile phones, updates on the Android system and online sales on Alibaba channels (the Taobao platform).
He responded to these rumors, which according to some could compromise ZTE's supplies in Italy as well ZTE Italy CEO Hu Kun who is also president of the Western Europe area: "Our operations are not only continuing - he declared to Agenzia Italia - but rather they are going forward with even greater determination both to demonstrate the seriousness and fairness of the group and to meet the expectations of our customers and our partners who are hundreds in Italy and who work with us with confidence". Therefore, according to official statements, the Chinese giant intends to carry forward the 600 million plan envisaged in Italy for the construction of the 5 G network, smart city projects and research centers already announced. ZTE was the group that created the Wind network and Wind is the operator to whom IIiad-Free will be supported, from the point of view of the infrastructure, for his entry into Italy. Admission announced for the summer but now submitted – or maybe not? – to the uncertainty of China-US trade relations. We will see it shortly.
