Italy's new government aims to promote the construction of a new generation telecommunications network that may cost up to 15 billion euros ($23.1 billion), a government official said on Thursday.
"For us the priority is that the new generation networks be built quickly," Economy Under-secretary Paolo Romani told Reuters on the sidelines of conference in Luxembourg.
Italy has two broadband networks, one owned by former monopoly Telecom Italia and one by Fastweb, a unit of Swisscom. Telecom Italia plans to build a new network that would have a bandwidth several times greater than the current one. The group said in February it would create a new division called Open Access to manage its fixed-line network, meeting regulatory calls for independent management of the network to ensure equal access by competitors. The move eased tensions with Italy's telecoms regulator, Agcom, which had threatened to impose a management separation on Europe's fifth-largest telecoms operator. While the previous government under Romano Prodi favoured separating Telecom Italia's network into an independent unit, the current government, elected in April, seems to be taking a position closer to Telecom Italia.
Romani said the government sees the threatened separation as an exceptional measure and wants to focus on a course that will allow Telecom Italia to invest in the new network.
Comments
Comments are closed.