5G in Rome: why Vodafone, Wind, Tim and Iliad electrocute Gualtieri
In spite of the Antitrust reports, the Canadian Boldyn Networks has won the disputed tender for 5G which will transform Rome into a smart city by 2025. But Vodafone, Wind, Tim and Iliad are already on a war footing
The objective is one of the pretentious ones and perhaps also for this reason the Capitoline Administration is running frantically without waiting for the pending judgment of the regional administrative court and disregarding the opinion of the AGCM: to make Rome a smart city by the jubilee year of 2025. O , more realistically, start setting up the infrastructure. But the Eternal City is not just any city and cannot fill up with those repeaters which, towering over the roofs of condominiums, today characterize almost all of the urban panoramas of our country. Hence, they say from the Campidoglio, the decision to favor the Canadian Boldyn Networks, which in Italy is led by Luca Luciani (former top manager of the Tim group).
Boldyn Networks, as we will see in more detail in a few paragraphs, won the tender for the 5G of the Municipality of Rome thanks to its proposal to install smaller antennas than normal (but obviously also more numerous than usual: thousands and thousands will be needed) instead of the classic towers which should reduce – it is the hope of the junta – the visual impact, leaving the Capitoline roofs more or less intact.
VODAFONE AND TIM ON THE FOOT OF WAR
All of this, writes Repubblica today, "despite the appeal to the Tar and the Antitrust promoted by Vodafone, Wind, Tim and Iliad, on 2 August the mayor Roberto Gualtieri in fact granted project financing, lasting 25 years, to provide the 100 major squares of the capital of a network of small cells and antennas, to navigate in high-speed wifi and the same to wire the three underground lines in 5G".
A move that was in the air and which will certainly cause quite a few stomach aches to telephone operators who, the newspaper Gedi always reminds us, "invested billions to buy the frequencies of new generation mobile phones […] and for months they had been in discussions with Atac to make the metro line jump from 4g to 5g also because they had offered to support the entire investment, and continue to pay the fee to Atac. Mayor Gualtieri has instead decided to participate with an investment of around 20 million public money alongside the company led by Luciani (which in the tender is supported by Giuseppe Cinquanta's IFM), which will instead take on another 80 million in investments ”.
THE 5G PROJECT IN ROME THAT GUALTIERI LIKES SO MUCH
In short, from the Campidoglio the go-ahead to Boldyn Network for the installation of 2,200 small cells, micro-antennas that can be placed on medium-height supports such as, for example, street lamps (which differ from the macro antennas installed on the towers, which make up the traditional networks wide coverage, so-called "overlay" networks), especially suitable for city centres, as they have a low visual and environmental impact, for a total potential of 6,000 signal propagation points.
Furthermore, the installation of Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the territory of Rome and all the services for the subsequent management of the infrastructure is planned. And 300 towers to connect them and not only because the Canadian group has undertaken to connect 2,000 security cameras and 3,000 air quality sensors that will communicate with each other and with the operations center obviously via 5G and will form the ganglia of that network destined to transform Rome into a smart city.
COSTS AND AID FROM THE MUNICIPALITY
The total investment envisaged by the project is equal to 97.7 million euros, of which 20 million disbursed by the Municipality of Rome as a public contribution. The tender provides for the award of the exclusive concession, for a period of twenty-five years, for the construction and management of the 5G infrastructure in the Rome Capital area.
THE UNKNOWN OF TAR AND ANTITRUST
"Always assuming – noted by Repubblica – that on 20 October the Tar does not block the operation, making all the operators restart from the starting point". Doubts have already been raised by the Antitrust ( we talked about it here ) which formulated very critical observations at the end of July which in principle should have led the Administration to retrace its steps: "if on the one hand it can only share the objective of the creation of the 5G network widespread throughout the territory of Rome Capital, a network which constitutes an essential moment for the digitization and modernization of the city of Rome, on the other – notes the AGCM – it should be noted that the partnership proposal , as defined in the Resolution and in the Tender Documents, presents significant criticalities which not only compromise the competitive dynamics between the operators for the construction of the 5G infrastructure, but also raise doubts on the effective feasibility of the Project, in the light of the concrete context in which the same fits”.
THE AGCM DOESN'T LIKE GUALTIERI'S CLEANING OF THE EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE
“First of all – is the opinion of the Authority -, it should be highlighted that in the territory of Rome Capital there is already a complex and articulated network of infrastructures for mobile electronic communication services, built over time by the MNOs with their own resources. This network is destined to further develop with both private and public investments – the latter foreseen by the Italian Government's "Italy 5G" Plan, until reaching, in 2026, the objective of covering the entire Municipality of Rome with highly performing 5G technology . In fact, it should be noted that while on the one hand the "Italy 5G" plan provides for the coverage of the areas by subjects who, in 2021, were awarded the tenders (Inwit SpA, TIM SpA and Vodafone Italia SpA) in the bankruptcy areas market, on the other hand the MNOs will cover with their own resources, within the same term of 2026, the areas of greatest competitive interest, in compliance with the single euro legislation on state aid2. In this context, however, the Resolution and the Tender Documents are based on the decision to build the 5G network from scratch without taking any account of the existing infrastructures or of those which, on the basis of the aforementioned public and private investment plans, will be made in the coming years. The tender could, moreover, displace the investments already made or planned, affecting competition between infrastructures.”
"It is also essential to highlight that the successful tenderer will have the exclusive right not only for the construction, but also for the supply of the network infrastructure, i.e. the provision of the infrastructure and related passive devices in favor of the MNOs, as it is envisaged that, for the coverage of the underground areas, the pre-existing networks will be progressively deactivated and the successful tenderer will be the only operator holding the infrastructures. Consequently – the AGCM always notes -, the infrastructures built up to now by the MNOs may no longer be usable if they do not fall within the successful tenderer's project, compromising any possible infrastructural competition and nullifying the huge investments made and planned for the next few years , including those relating to the acquisition of frequencies intended for the operation of 5G networks, made available to the State with the auction held in 2018".
"In other words – summarized by the AGCM – the rigidity of the lex specialis prevents any form of competitive pressure from being created in the definition of the upstream strategic choice, i.e. that of building the new 5G network entirely from scratch rather than configuring a solution that takes into account the existing infrastructures and the activity of the main operators on the market, i.e. the MNOs. This in a context in which the tender documents explicitly state that the choice made is more demanding and onerous for the Administration than the option of articulating the 5G network based on the construction and/or completion of the infrastructures by the MNOs. Nor, on the other hand, is it clear what are the reasons why the advantages attributed to the creation of the 5G network from scratch (possibility of directing investments according to the priorities of Rome Capital, certainty of the times, creation of a network not only technologically advanced, but open and scalable to favor the maximum development of new services) cannot be pursued even using, partially, the existing infrastructures".
THE REJECTION OF THE AGCM OF THE GUALTIERI PLAN FOR ROME ON 5G
The Authority led by Roberto Rustichelli therefore believes "that the set of constraints referred to above of the Project and of the lex specialis of the tender present significant disincentives for the operators to participate in the tender itself and to exert effective competitive pressure on the promoter both in definition of an efficient 5G network architecture and in the competition for the granting of the concession, involving more costly solutions also for the contracting station itself, with negative final effects on the end users of mobile telephony services. Therefore, the Authority invites this Roma Capitale body to put in place the corrective measures necessary to restore the correct competitive dynamics with respect to the implementation of the 5G Project in the territory of Roma Capitale."
THE POSITION OF ROME CAPITAL
However, the Campidoglio do not seem disturbed by the remarks raised by the Antitrust. “With regard to press reports relating to alleged 'stops' by the Competition and Market Authority regarding the 5G project in Rome, the Campidoglio specifies that it has received a report pursuant to art. 21 of law 287/1990 regarding the methods of implementation of the network in question which does not in any way imply a slowdown or interruption of the process in progress“, explains the Gualtieri administration in a note.
"In reiterating that this is a project born out of the need to equip the city with a modern technological infrastructure in step with the times, Roma Capitale specifies that it will not only provide all the clarifications requested, but will play an active part in promoting a dialogue with all operators in the sector for the best possible configuration of the network, which takes full advantage of the investments already made and, at the same time, directs the development of the project in the interest of both operators, citizens and the capital".
ALL DAMAGES SUFFERED BY THE RIVALS
The fact remains that the intervention of the Antitrust Authority constitutes a real assistance to the complaints of Vodafone and Tim who will certainly exploit the opinion of the AGCM in every venue up to the Council of State, also because both TLCs already counted on returning investments thanks to the extraordinary influx of tourists for the jubilee year: users from all over the world who would be connected in roaming to make calls and use the internet from smartphones, not with the WiFi of the new infrastructure.
And, speaking of infrastructure, the telecommunications companies that have seen the 5G tender vanish will now have to put their wallets in order to remove their 4G equipment from the metros, connect to those of Boldyn and pay an annual fee of 2.5 million (against, notes Repubblica, the 350,000 euros paid to Atac so far). The word now to the administrative judges, notoriously faster than their civil and criminal colleagues but never as fast as 5G. And the Municipality, we have seen, is in a great hurry.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/5g-a-roma-perche-vodafone-wind-tim-e-iliad-folgorano-gualtieri/ on Fri, 18 Aug 2023 07:59:23 +0000.