Meloni’s European road passes through telecommunications

We have not only the slowdown in GDP and inflation that are increasingly restricting the room for maneuver of the new executive. A new government has just taken office and seeing that “politics is more important than antennas”, as some shrewd insiders say at work, the dossiers on telecommunications are among the most important among those already deposited on the table of the presidency of the council.

The first dossiers for the new government

Not surprisingly, last Tuesday, the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces published a document of priority themes and programmatic proposals, a kind of institutional liturgy when a new government takes office, with very important hints for technological innovation. He knows it well Laura Di Raimondo, director of Asstel: “The issues of recent months, such as energy and electromagnetic limits, are part of a general framework for relaunching industrial policy that shows the need to act to give due recognition to a sector that is continuing to invest despite the difficulties of recent years. I hope that, with the new government, the support already received with the previous one that had intervened on the system’s burdens with measures continues ad hoc for telcos that should be kept as structural “.

It’s not just about money when it comes to electromagnetic limits, quite the opposite. The objective of the telecommunications supply chain is clear: obstacles for the digital transition to 5G and for the development of innovative applications must be removed even in the most remote areas of the territory. Easy to say, less to come true: “This is the moment in which the dossiers and proposals for the new legislature are entrusted,” Di Raimondo al Foglio remembers, “what developed by the Conference of Regions is a necessary step to harmonize Italian limits to European ones, obviously maintaining the maximum protection of citizens and public health. ” Not surprisingly, in the last Itu symposium (the international organization that deals with defining standards in telecommunications and in the use of radio waves, ed), it emerged as the main problem that slows down the development of 5G in Italy is to be found in the current regulatory provisions, “which set, in 2003, particularly stringent electromagnetic limits when compared to those of the other Member States”. In a nutshell, the system of two decades ago is not technically applicable to 5G technology because, unlike 4G, this has an “adaptive” power emission since it is based on the number and location of users to be reached with the service. .

Expensive energy and continuity of service

If the restrictions weren’t enough, the current crisis has also brought out the energy problem. Some operators have come out in the open with their own moves, for example Iliad has announced to turn off part of its frequencies at night, Asstel for its part remains the natural representative of these instances. “We ask that mitigation measures be introduced for the cost of energy also for telcos, as is the case for energy-intensive companies”, explains Di Raimondo. The fact that telecommunications is a fundamental infrastructure for our economy now seems well established, even if the sector risks finding itself at a crossroads: “We would not like to decide one day between continuing to invest in infrastructure and skills or paying for energy bills… ”, continues Di Raimondo.

Between the financial crisis and the work of the future

The sector, in fact, suffers terribly. This is not new, but documents such as that of the latest Mediobanca study have put back, in black and white, the bare and raw data of the current situation: in Italy, the turnover has decreased by over 14 billion between the 2010 and 2021, with the mobile network in greater trouble (-5.0 percent) than the fixed (-2.5). Dynamics, says the report, influenced by competitive pressures (also by the OCTs), which in our country caused the most marked decrease in telephone rates (-20.5 percent) compared to the European average -4.9 percent in the five-year period 2017-2021. In short, if the consumers rejoice, the managers cry: just think that, only in the first half of this year, revenues have continued the downward trend, falling by 4.6 percent with a contraction in turnover that remains concentrated above all among the former. three operators, namely Tim, WindTre and Vodafone.

Yet reasons why this sector remains a driving example for the national and European economy are not lacking, recalls Laura Di Raimondo: “We are the link between the numerous needs of our society and the future of work: if on the one hand for the speed of implementation of the proposals is fundamental to us also on energy issues and transmission limits, on the other hand we are committed every day to the development of the digital culture and skills. We are a reality that invests as much in companies as in people with over two hundred thousand employees who are giving life to new experiences and new jobs. A sector that, not surprisingly, had introduced the truth smart working even before the pandemic, so much so that I passionately claim that the future of our sector lies precisely in the organization of work that is changing “. Faster than the law, but that’s another story.