The Italian government is to contribute €7bn towards the €12bn national high-speed broadband plan approved in March, with the country’s telecom operators providing the remaining €5bn, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told journalists…
The Italian government is to contribute €7bn towards the €12bn national high-speed broadband plan approved in March, with the country’s telecom operators providing the remaining €5bn, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told journalists yesterday.
Telecom Italia (BIT:TIT), he continued, would play a key role in the deployment. The company had hoped to buy a stake in dark fibre network provider Metroweb, but having been unsuccessful has so far declined to join a yet-to-be-formalised agreement among Metroweb, Vodafone and Wind to invest some €4bn-€5bn on a fibre optic network roll-out.
Announcing H1 results today, the Italian incumbent said it had increased investment by 26% to €2.1bn in a bid to modernise its infrastructure. CEO Marco Patuano said the JV announced yesterday between cellcos Wind and 3 Italia would benefit the entire market, by reducing the number of players from four to three.
The company has during the period signed content deals with Netflix, Sky and Mediaset.
“Our agreement with national and international TV players are driving the demand for [superfast] broadband connections,” Patuano stated.
Telecom Italia’s largest shareholder is now French media giant Vivendi, which holds a 14.9% stake after a deal with former lead shareholder Telefonica.
Vivendi chairman Vincent Bollore, who yesterday met with Renzi, indicated that he aims to be a long-term investor rather than dictating strategy, reports Reuters citing a source familiar. While not angling for a board position, he would reportedly like to offer Telecom Italia his company’s content to distribute on its platform.
Some observers have predicted that Bollore’s strategy was to help Telecom Italia transform itself into a higher value content distributor, while others have told TelecomFinance they expect a more straightforward, activist approach.
Telecom Italia will in the meantime settle €4bn in antitrust suits lodged by rivals, also working with regulators to ensure it complies with competition rules, Patuano said. It will not however separate its fixed-line network, he added, in contrary to newswire reports earlier this week.
