5G and broadband, the Meloni government shoots at zero on former minister Colao

The plans to create a single national network and increase connections a broadband connection throughout Italy they are not in good health. The government of former president Mario Draghi had already communicated to the European Commission the impossibility of reaching the targets provided for by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr), but, according to the Undersecretary for Innovation of the government of the president Giorgia Meloni, Alessio Butti, the state of play is even more worrying.

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The government renounces the delegation that was held by Paola Pisano and Vittorio Colao in the last governments. Despite the billions that the PNRR assigns to digital and the strategic technological challenges for Italy

Arm wrestling on the data

Butti harshly accused the former Minister of Innovation, Vittorio Colao, of having left a situation “to say the least embarrassing“ to his successors, studded with unattainable goals and delays. “Regarding the 1 Giga Italy Plan” supported the undersecretary in his speech at the conference of Assotelecomunicazioni (Asstel), reported by the press agency Radiocor, “The declared objective in the Pnrr to cover with additional 1 Giga nets 8.5 million units residential areas, of which 450,000 are scattered homes, unfortunately declared himself wrong“.

It would have been the previous government to admit it to the European Commission, before the Meloni government took office, communicating how “In the face of a detailed mapping, the areas that in 2026 appear to be in market failure (and therefore recipients of public intervention) are of interest only 6.87 million of residential units (1.63 million less than the target of the NRP) “. But for Butti, new problems could also arise with respect to the coverage of the so-called gray areasie those that should have received the connection of at least one operator capable of providing network services a ultra-wide bandwhere the realization of the networks could suffer delays.

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The 5G case

Furthermore, for Butti the Draghi government has also disregarded the objectives for the 5G Italy Plan, with a budget of around two billion euros divided between the base station fiber optic connection and the construction of new base stations. But if the coverage of at least 15 thousand square kilometers of areas with market failure, in the latest report sent to the European Commission, the outgoing government would have reduced the surface to only 440 kilometers.

The Open Fiber case

Butti then attacked Open Fiber, the operator controlled by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, in charge of creating the single national network. According to the undersecretary, who had already criticized the previous government’s move and argued that the network infrastructure should be placed under Tim’s control, Open Fiber would have amassed enormous delays of realization of the works already in white areas and it would not be credible for him to complete the works in the gray areas within the set deadlines.

The operator should indeed connect “6,411,150 units real estate “ by June 2023, but between September and October 2022 “The total number of real estate units, where the Open Fiber service can be activated, has grown due to the sun 50,520 units reaching a total of 2,088,156 “, argued Butti. “To respect the times – he added – Open Fiber must therefore make another 4,322,994 real estate units available between now and June 2023which is equivalent to a monthly average of about 540,000 realizations against an average of about 46,000 monthly units in the last 6 months “. According to the undersecretary, one of the solutions to solve these delays would be to entrust Tim with the single network project, combine it with that of Open Fiber and put everything under the hat of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (therefore of the State).