Work has begun to bring fast internet in a widespread manner to schools and health facilities in the country. And thus favoring the innovation of teaching and care, as well as allowing efficiencies on management costs. Good news announced this week by the minister for digital transition Vittorio Colao: it is the signature, in particular, of the contracts for the start of the works for the Connected Schools and Connessa Health Calls, to the successful bidders Intred, Fastweb, Tim and Vodafone. A total of 480 million euros to cover approximately 10 thousand schools and 12 thousand public health facilities by 2026, with optimal speed, between 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit per second.
And it is “not at all obvious news, this ability of the offices to quickly assign all the calls for ultra broadband and now also sign the contracts”, he explains. Cristoforo Morandini, long-time expert in telecommunications (EY, Tim and now an analyst at Tmt-Ptclas). Same efficiency also in the assignment of tenders for gigabits in homes and 5G. It means that the outgoing government leaves the house in order, at least on this front, and it will now be up to the new one not to waste the advantages accumulated so far.
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by Alessandro Longo
The winners of the Sanità Connessa tender of 313.95 million and of Connected Schools of 165 million will have to guarantee, in addition to the supply of connectivity services, also the supply and installation of the access network, management services, technical assistance and maintenance. For “Connected schools” four lots were awarded to Tim, three to Fastweb and one to Intred, while for “Connected health” four lots were awarded to Fastweb, two to Tim and two to Vodafone. The total of the assignments sees seven lots for Fastweb for a value of around 213 million euros, six lots for Tim for around 177 million euros, two to Vodafone for around 71 million euros and one to Intred for around 19 million euros.
Not only the speed of awarding and signing contracts, but also the characteristics of the calls will make life easier for the new government. “All the calls for fast internet – including these on Healthcare and Schools – for a total of 6.31 billion euros take advantage of the mistakes made in the previous ones”, explains Morandini.
The lesson of white areas
An excellent case are the delays in the first ultra-broadband plan, to cover the white areas (those with total market failure, ie where no operator wanted to invest). “The plan provided for coverage of the areas by 2020. Now on the Infratel site – the company of the Ministry of Economic Development that controls the works – we are talking about 2023. It will be interesting to see if at least this date will be respected”, notes Morandini. Here, “the new calls have, unlike the previous ones, a more stringent system for controlling the progress of work and penalties”, she adds. It should also be said that the government has progressively simplified the bureaucracy of permits, to reduce the delays in excavating and laying the fiber.
The problems of the past
The problems of the old calls, however, do not concern only the delays. But also the level of adoption, too low. “Subscribers in the white areas already covered are only 100 thousand, out of three million potential users. Why isn’t it working? Why don’t people subscribe? ”Asks Morandini, trying to give some answers. And he does it starting from his personal experience of him: “my house is in the white area and I realized that the fiber had arrived only because I noticed the manhole. Then I had to find the operator who was selling it to me and it wasn’t easy ”. Third problem, “the costs are higher in the white areas, for the monthly fee and for the activation”. It’s not over: “I made the request a month and a half ago and only now they sent me the technician for the inspection”. Activation who knows when it will happen. In normal areas it takes ten days to get the connection.
In short, the problems are numerous: “not all operators sell in those areas, on the Open Fiber network, and certainly do not promote the offer. In fact, they claim that their margins are reduced there ”, says Morandini, who suggest the use of vouchers dedicated to these areas (with public funds), to encourage the activation of services.
For schools and hospitals Italy had made a similar mistake in the past, with tenders that left too high costs for the public administration. As a result, few schools and hospitals activated the fast internet, brought there with public funds. “The new tenders for schools and hospitals cover costs that the previous ones did not foresee and that would otherwise have been borne by the public administrations”, explains Morandini.
In short, this time it seems that everything is in order, to avoid a new flop. But the game is still long. Between now and 2026 there are many things that could go wrong. It is to be hoped that the new government will devote as much care and attention to the issue. The billions of euros of public funds are at stake on the ultra-broadband chapter and also the promise to unblock the efficiency and productivity of the country system.