The government sets the objectives and principles of the 5G tender that the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) finances with 2 billion and 20 million. The document that the ministry for technological innovation has put in public consultation for a month aims to guarantee the speed of at least 150 megabits per second in the downlink and 50 Mbit / s in the uplink, in areas where it is not present, nor will it be. by 2026, no network capable of providing connectivity at 30 Mbit / s in peak traffic conditions.
The public company Infratel, on a mandate from the government, has completed the mapping of the 4G and 5G networks built or programmed by the operators by 2026, the closing date of the NRP. From the survey – collected the data provided by Tim, Vodafone, WindTre and Iliad – the map of “market failure” Italy emerged, where the 30 Mbit / second is not foreseen and public intervention is allowed: 15% of the national territory, which affects about 1.6% of the population (with peaks of 3.3% in Molise and 3.1% in Calabria). A further portion concerns motorway and railway tunnels, covering 230 km and 870 km respectively.
The State will intervene with the incentive mechanism, ie by financing a portion of the investments, which will be decided upon the outcome of the consultation, but leaving the ownership of the networks to private individuals. A minority part of the plan, however, can be carried out with direct intervention by Infratel. The funding will cover the fiber optic binding of 13,200 mobile radio sites corresponding to 18,600 radio base stations. But it will not be enough to achieve the objectives and it will therefore be necessary to subsidize the ex novo construction of additional mobile radio sites which, however, the Colao ministry specifies, will not be taken into consideration to meet the coverage obligations already provided for by the 2018 auction for licenses.
However, the plan goes even further and, for specific areas, also assumes subsidizing the active components of the new infrastructures, therefore part of the technological equipment. The obligation of wholesale access, which will be regulated by the TLC Authority, and the clause are envisaged claw back on the basis of which any excess profits are monitored and the part of the public contribution granted in excess is recovered.
If at the end of the tender there are residual resources, they can be used to support the application. It is planned to support vertical sectors in the use of 5G, for example by improving the internal coverage of school buildings, health facilities and internal spaces of railways and airports.