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Here’s how Colao replies to Butti on Pnrr, 5g and beyond

2 years babelfish

Here's how Colao replies to Butti on Pnrr, 5g and beyond

The Meloni government shoots zero in the TLC matter on the Draghi government and the Undersecretary for Innovation Butti crushes the state of the work of the Pnrr on 5G and broadband. But Colao doesn't agree and the ex-minister's technicians reply to the criticisms

Clash between the Draghi and Meloni governments on telecommunications.

“The situation we inherit is much more critical than what formally emerged. Respecting the objectives of the Pnrr for telecommunications will be complicated and very demanding”, warned on Monday the undersecretary of the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for Innovation, Alessio Butti from the Asstel Telecommunications Forum.

For the 1 Giga Italy Plan, "the objective stated in the Pnrr by former minister Vittorio Colao was sadly declared wrong," Butti ruled. “Even for the Italy 5G Plan, the previous government leaves us with an embarrassing situation to say the least”. And with "major delays," "Plan Bul [Ultra-Broadband Plan] isn't in better shape."

But the former minister for technological innovation in the Draghi government Vittorio Colao replies to Butti: no delay in broadband and 5G. The ex minister's technicians rebut point by point the criticisms raised by Undersecretary Butti in a document.

Here is the full text of the report by former minister Vittorio Colao's technicians:

During the Asstel Forum of 14 November, some inaccuracies were disseminated on the PNRR objectives "Italia a 1 Giga" and "Italia 5G" which are reported verbatim below (numbered and in italics) specifying – for each of them – the correctness of the facts :

  1. “ The European Commission has already expressed concerns to the outgoing government, which has declared that it cannot achieve the objectives previously indicated ”. Last September, the Commission received the final clarifications on the achievement of the June 2022 milestone, including confirmation on the achievement of the coverage targets by 2026; the Commission expressed no comment or concern and released the tranche of resources as planned in November 2022.
  2. “ As regards the 1 Giga Italy Plan, the objective declared in the PNRR by former minister Vittorio Colao to cover a further 8.5 million residential units with 1 Giga networks, 450,000 of which are scattered houses, unfortunately wrong. In the progress report sent to the European Commission last October, therefore just a month ago, Italy communicated that, in the face of a detailed mapping, the areas that by 2026 appear to be in market failure (and therefore recipients of public intervention ) affect only approximately 6.87 million residential units (approximately 1.63 million less than the target of the PNRR)” .

The target of 8.5 million real estate units is, as known, an estimate made at the time of the definition of the PNRR (April 2021) and necessarily prior to the launch of the request for authorization of the Plan to the European Commission (DG Competition) for "State aid ”. Pursuant to this regulation, in fact, the Italy 1Giga Plan was subject to a verification carried out through mapping (in which more than 50 subjects participated) and to two public consultations with the market (with more than 70 contributions). The authorization for state aid from the European Commission (DG Competition) resulted in the full sharing of the plan which, following the detailed verification of the cover investments planned by all operators up to 2026, shared that the number of the civic for which it was authorized to intervene with public funding were around 6.87 million , i.e. those recognized as "market failure" i.e. that by 2026 would not have been covered by private investments capable of guaranteeing a connection speed of 300Mbit/s in download . It follows that only the latter value (about 6.87 million citizens) can be the recipient of public funding pursuant to state aid legislation. By 2026, the target of 8.5 million real estate units will therefore be achieved by the sum of the house numbers put out for tender and the house numbers covered according to private investment plans.

Otherwise if, as can be seen from the declaration, we had also included the 1.63 million "presumed uncovered and missing" civilians in the tender for public funding, the EU Commission would not have been able to approve the Plan because there would have been public funding in overlap with the private one. 

  1. “ But what worries me most are the delays that we will certainly have also in the timing of the creation of the network in the so-called gray areas, on which there is the risk of opening up a large front of defaults ” .

The responsibility of supervising compliance with the times of the PNRR and the correct implementation of the commitments made by the operators, both of the declarations on the private investment plans, and of compliance with the conditions set out in the public tenders by the successful tenderers, lies with Infratel Italia and the political authority delegated by the Government , which act on the basis of a precise Convention which governs their responsibilities, actions, penalties and times. The Authority delegated by the previous Government, precisely to avoid delays, has implemented daily supervision of compliance with deadlines and, in order to avoid possible delays in the future, has: 

  1. formally asked Infratel to start the annual mapping to verify compliance with the private network development plans by 7 November 2022, whose verification of compliance with this essential deadline is the responsibility of the government currently in office;
  2. explicitly clarified, on page 18, par. 3.1, of the document already published on 12 October on the MITD website entitled "Digital Italy 2026: MITD results and activities 2021-2021 and actions for 2022-2026" the importance of the timely start of the mapping on the progress of investments in fixed and mobile networks and a careful monitoring activity precisely to avoid the responsibility of Infratel and of the delegated authority of the current Government for any delays .
  3. “ Also for the Italy 5G Plan, the previous government leaves us with an embarrassing situation to say the least. The outgoing executive had already declared to the Commission that Italy, also in this case, will not achieve the objectives set out in the Plan. The budget of approximately 2 billion euros was split equally between base station fiber optic connection and the construction of new base stations to increase 5G coverage. As far as the coverage portion alone is concerned, the objective declared in the PNRR is to cover at least 15,000 sq km of market failure areas with the 5G network. In the latest report sent to the European Commission, the outgoing government stated that the areas of market failure in 2026 will be 440 sq km and no longer 15,000 sq km as envisaged by the target ”

As already clarified for the Italy 1Giga Plan, the Italy 5G Plan also saw the definition of an estimate of the coverage targets in April 2021 ( moment of definition of the PNRR) and, subsequently, was subject to the complex procedure for obtaining the first authorization on the Italian mobile market by the European Commission (DG Competition) for state aid. Also in

In this case, the previous Government shared the Plan with the operators and interested parties (through mapping and public consultation) and with the European Commission following the notification and intense dialogue, which fully authorized it. Here too it is worth reiterating that under state aid legislation, market failure areas are those in which, on the basis of a detailed mapping and public consultation, there is an absence of networks (fixed or mobile) suitable for reaching a predefined level of connection speed and at the same time ascertains the absence of credible programs by the operators for the creation of such networks, in a reference time frame. As a result of the mapping carried out for the first time on the mobile market in Italy, it emerged that most of the areas which, at the time of drafting the PNRR, lacked infrastructure were covered by private plans and 440 sq km were identified as market failure. 

Also in this case, as publicly reported, the need to start the mapping exercise on mobile networks is recalled to verify the trend of private investments, reiterating that the target of the PNRR will be fully achieved through the sum of the areas subject to private investments and those with public investment: a result that would place Italy at the best international levels and not exactly embarrassing . 

  1. “Macroscopic delays of the BUL Plan. The BUL Plan is not in better shape if we look, once again, at the timing of its implementation. Frankly, it seems unlikely that Open Fiber is able to carry out the works in the gray areas within the timescales envisaged by the PNRR , if it has not even been able to do those in the white areas, thus accumulating enormous delays, delays which have even grown over the years. senior year .”

The BUL Plan to which the note refers appears to be that of the so-called “white areas” which derives from the Government's 2015 Ultra-Broadband Strategy . The supervision of the results achieved by the previous management of the Open Fiber company is (and remains) always in the hands of Infratel Italia and the competent Ministry is the Ministry of Economic Development (MISE). The previous Government followed the relaunch plan proposed by the new management of the Open Fiber company within the Interministerial Committee for the Digital Transition , but the supervisory responsibility remains with the MISE and Infratel Italia. 

  1. “ Respecting the objectives of the PNRR for telecommunications will be complicated and very demanding ”

One can only agree on this conclusion: the creation of infrastructure coverage plans is extremely complex and the times of the PNRR have always been recognized as challenging: this is why a competent team of experts and professionals is needed to carry out a careful supervisory activity on operators and on Infratel, as well as a constant, timely and – indeed – very demanding impulse activity by the Government

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/ecco-come-colao-replica-a-butti-su-pnrr-5g-e-non-solo/ on Wed, 16 Nov 2022 09:04:43 +0000.