(Finance) – The report “The Telco sector in Italy: regulatory framework and impact analysis“, realized by Luiss Business School and supported by WINDTRE. The report, the result of a research on the state of health of the telecommunications sector in Italy, analyzes the reference regulatory framework, highlighting the aspects that affect the development potential and benefits of investments in infrastructures and services for the national economy.
The study represents the starting point for the promotion of a new industrial policy for the sector. Dwelling on brakes that the regulatory framework and the administrative bureaucracy of the country place on the path of the investments necessary for the double transition, digital and ecological, the report hopes for an indispensable change to create conditions that support investments by telecommunications operators, through a context characterized by adequate profitability, certainty of timing and rules implemented consistently. According to the analysis of Luiss Business School, the guideline along which it is necessary to act is, first of all, that of simplification and shortening of the authorization process, accompanied by a system of incentives and sanctions that discourage opportunistic behaviors and instead support virtuous ones.
“There are critical issues that must be addressed quickly in order not to miss the train. The Government is making an important effort precisely because it aims to quickly digitize the country but PNRR alone is not enough to achieve this goal. Huge investments are needed by telecommunications operators,” therefore what we ask is to facilitate ourselves in this sense. Facilitating ourselves means, at no cost, continuing to simplify procedures, eliminating bureaucracy. Today it takes more than 5 months to obtain the permits for an antenna, from Veneto to Sicily “, said on the sidelines of the event Gianluca Cortiappointed managing director of WINDTRE.
“The country’s digitization process cannot ignore a trim regulatory which encourages the intervention of telcos, which have always been committed to large investments in a market context that is, on the other hand, hyper-competitive and with regulation largely unfavorable in the medium and long term – declared Corti in his speech -. Luiss Business School research, with an organic analysis and methodological rigor, puts pen to paper effects systematic of inadequate rules and bureaucracy in a modern country facing the competition global. A system intervention has become urgent to tackle the bureaucracy, which invests in digital culture and introduces the tax credit to stimulate investments by the manufacturing sector in telecommunication infrastructures “.
The study conducted, in fact, highlights the impact of Telco investments on the entire economic system: for every billion euros invested in mobile and fixed broadband, the total value of production grows by 2.6 and 2.7 billion euros respectively. Furthermore, the increase in broadband penetration does not only correspond to a growth in GDP, but also a reduction in CO2 emissions. With reference, then, to the limits of exposure to electromagnetic fields, the study underlines the urgency of bringing the very restrictive current legislation into line with that adopted mainly in Europe. The adoption of electromagnetic limits stricter than those recommended by international institutions is in fact associated with a lack of growth in GDP per capita of 3.2 per cent.
“The Telco sector represents a fundamental asset for the economy of our country and plays a leading role in the digital transition process – he added Matteo Caroli, Associate Dean for Internationalization and Director of Applied Research and Observers, Luiss Business School -. Our research returns the photograph of a sector that faces some problems that characterize the Italian system but, at the same time, wants to be a starting point for promoting a new industrial policy that focuses on a renewed role of institutions and on a public tandem- private sector that, starting from the comparison, favors virtuous policies that stimulate sustainable economic growth and encourage the digital transition process and the development of the skills necessary for this purpose “.