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MILAN, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The head of Vodafone Group
said Italy's plan to create a single fast broadband network in
which Telecom Italia would hold a majority stake could
be a step backwards since it effectively amounted to
renationalisation and re-monopolisation.
In an article in Politico on Wednesday, Nick Read said Rome
was looking to recreate the fixed-line monopoly that previous
Italian governments and EU institutions had dismantled.
"This would leave would-be fixed broadband providers with
only one seller of wholesale access to the combined network -
yet again Telecom Italia (TIM)," he said.
Last month TIM and state lender CDP agreed to
create a national ultrafast grid operator combining the former
phone monopoly's network assets with those of smaller rival Open
Fiber.
Such an operator could be majority-owned by TIM but its
independence and third-party status would be guaranteed by a
shared governance mechanism with CDP, which would emerge as a
major shareholder in the venture, open to other players.
Vodafone offers mobile and fixed-line services in Italy, and
is one of Open Fiber's biggest commercial clients.
The Italian government sees the single broadband network as
a strategic priority to help Italy close a yawning technological
gap with other countries and boost its stagnant economy by
increasing digitalisation.
Read said it had only been with the creation of Open Fiber a
few years ago that Italy had started to modernise its fixed
networks, providing more comparable high-speed services to those
of other EU member countries.
"Reverting to a failed monopoly model cannot possibly be
good for either competition or investment. It also contravenes
four decades of anti-monopolistic policy and EU law," he said.
TIM and CDP declined to comment.
(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Mark Potter)
