Tlc

Fibre, Pnrr plan towards cutting. Elon Musk hypothesis pops up

Against the delays 155,000 fewer house numbers would end up in a new tender. The principle of technological neutrality would also open up for satellite operators

by Andrea Biondi and Carmine Fotina

20 November 2024

Al lavoro. Potrebbe essere un emendamento alla legge di bilancio a innescare la soluzione riguardante le aree grigie

4' min read

Key points

First impact
The consequence
The match with Brussels

4' min read

The 1 Giga Italy Plan, which leverages funds from the NRP, is set to 'lose' 155,000 civics. Which in total should thus come out of the Open Fibre and Fibercop investment plans. With two immediate results and one coming as a direct consequence.

The first impact

In the immediate term, the measure should promote a push for the completion on schedule (June 2026) of the cabling of the grey (semi-competitive) areas assigned to Open Fiber (8 lots) and Fibercop (7 lots) and savings of millions of euro for the two wholesale companies. The hypothesis in the field could then involve, as a corollary, the involvement of operators that provide Internet connectivity via satellite, such as Elon Musk's Starlink, which in the meantime is organising, in agreement with the Italian government, a technical trial in some regions to measure performance and thus assess the effectiveness of the service.

It could be an amendment to the budget bill that triggers a solution studied in recent months by Palazzo Chigi and the relevant ministries, which do not conceal their concern about the delay of the 1 Giga Italy Plan: a pillar of the NRP with almost 3.5 billion allocated.

According to data updated in mid-October, Open Fiber and Fibercop had yet to cover 70 per cent of house numbers. The first company was further behind, with a partial 23.7% (see Il Sole 24 Ore of 20 October). Hence a wide range of solutions, among which a cut of 155,000 house numbers seems to have taken hold.

The consequence

This would be followed by a public consultation to check whether they are not already covered by the plans of private operators. The civics that would remain completely uncovered should then end up in a new public plan, which would then be outside the Pnrr tracks and to be covered, if at all, with national resources. This would proceed by means of a notice or a real tender, which, on the basis of the principle of technological neutrality, could include satellite connections and therefore also Starlink. Provided that the EU Commission does not set excessively high technological constraints, i.e. limiting the scope to optical fibre, which to date continues to guarantee more advanced performance than satellite.

As for the house numbers, the 155,000 - of which about 90,000 are Open Fiber's and 65,000 Fibercop's - are nothing more than the difference between the 3.55 million included by Infratel in the agreements with the successful bidders and the 3.4 million set as the EU target to be reached by mid-2026. A safety 'buffer' provided at the time out of prudence. Infratel could now elide it without having to go and renegotiate the plan with the EU, if necessary also on the basis, as mentioned, of a rule to be inserted as an amendment in the budget law.

In this context, on the other hand, the corresponding reduction in funding for Open Fibre and Fibercop, in the order of around EUR 70 million and EUR 40 million respectively, now appears to have vanished (even though it had been assessed in the government in recent weeks), which was also avoided in view of the gap between Infratel's (higher) targets and the EU's (lower and more aligned) ones.

The match with Brussels

With a longer horizon, the two companies are also looking carefully at a possibility on which they are working on the Rome-Brussels axis. The objective would be to obtain a further deletion from the 1 Giga Italy Plan of 450,000 house numbers located in remote areas of the country (the so-called 'scattered houses' according to the ISTAT classification). The issue is much more complex and the EU does not seem inclined to open up at the moment, but the scenario could change if an overall revision of the NRP takes shape in the spring.

Today, however, in addition to the possibility of 155,000 households being cancelled with the stroke of a pen, the focus at Open Fibre is on the amendment to Article 76 of the manoeuvre to facilitate the switch-off from copper networks to high-capacity networks.

Only today will it be known whether the corrective measure is among those flagged as priorities by FdI: if it were to reach the final goal, it would represent a significant boost for Open Fiber, which was born with the very idea of bringing fibre FTH to the country and is now grappling with the refinancing of its project financing. On this last point, the expectation is for the conclusion of negotiations with the banks by the beginning of next month, also thanks to the contribution that, according to the Sole 24 Ore, if necessary should arrive - in the order of 100 million euro - from Cassa Depositi e Presiti.

On the other hand, with regard to the measure that, if approved in the budget law, should favour the migration from copper to fibre, Open Fibre would also benefit in view of a possible future merger with Fibercop, with an intervention that would end up enhancing the company headed by Cdp and Macquarie, allowing the Mef (which has already invested in Fibercop)-Cdp tandem to obtain a relative majority share in Of's merger with the company headed by the consortium led by Kkr.

Carmine FotinaVicecaposervizio
- @CFotina
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Luogo: Roma
Lingue parlate: inglese, spagnolo
Argomenti: Politica industriale, commercio estero, innovazione digitale, tlc
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Trust project
Andrea BiondiVicecaposervizio
Luogo: Milano
Lingue parlate: Italiano, Inglese, Francese
Argomenti: Finanza, Media, Telecomunicazioni, Economia dell'entertainment, Innovazione
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Trust project