Forza Digitaliano!
The new Italian government led by Giorgia Meloni wants to bring Telecom Italia’s (TIM) network under state control to expedite a digitalised economy, Reuters has reported. The nation’s Industry Minister Adolfo Urso has said the privatisation of Italy’s former phone monopoly in 1997 was a “mistake” and that “we need the network to be under public control,” Urso told a business conference in Rome.
Urso’s remarks came as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s administration reviewed options on how to combine TIM‘s landline grid with that of smaller rival Open Fiber to create a single national broadband network. One possibility is the so-called ‘Minerva’ project, which would involve a takeover bid for TIM by state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), which controls Open Fiber.
TIM’s alternative plans, drawn up by structural engineer turned CEO Pietro Labriola, is to spin-off the intelligent parts of the infrastructure (the network but not the towers) and later merge with Open Fiber. This has been litigated for within a memorandum of understanding with CDP.
“The government strategy is to have a state-controlled network”, and it will decide “with one voice” how to reach this goal, Urso said at the Rome conference.
Last week, Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti urged caution on the Minerva plan, saying it was something that needed to be extensively discussed within the government.