The strategy for ultra-broadband, approved on 25 May by the Interministerial Committee for Digital, coordinated by the Minister for Technological Innovation, Vittorio Colao, clearly opens up the “possibility of making additional spectral resources available to mobile radio operators” for 5G. And he adds that “the sharing of mobile network infrastructures and the radio spectrum” can also be considered. In short, 5G telephony is placed at the center of the national plan for ultra-broadband and financed with 2 billion of Recovery plan funds. The debate on the new frequencies is very open.
Towards 2023
Italy looks to the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2023 to allocate an important slice of the 6 Gigahertz “mid-band” to 5G, considered particularly efficient for the system. It is at the outcome of this international appointment that a possible new tender could be realized after the one in 2018 which cost the licensed operators a total of 6.55 billion euros.
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It is also considered to draw on the resources of the Ministry of Defense in the 3.4-3.6 Ghz band but it is necessary to understand that real maneuvering spaces remain after the tender by the State Police that links this spectrum band to a public security service for video surveillance in mobility and access to databases. In the meantime, compliance with the timing of the migration process of the frequencies in the 700 megahertz band must be ensured, which must be sold to the Telco by the television stations, a game that has suddenly become tangled.
New business models
But the government and the Authority are not only looking at the traditional business model that has so far characterized the licensing mechanisms in mobile telephony. In fact, operators could be forced to rethink their role in light of the new uses of 5G in “vertical” markets. In fact, Italy too, after Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden, is planning to assign some band resources exclusively or with sharing mechanisms to private uses on a local basis. In other words, factories, large utilities, ports, hospitals, universities could be directly assignees of small portions of the spectrum, within limited areas, and then rely on providers or managers only as service providers. However, it will be necessary to understand if the Telcos will feel threatened by the loss or sharing of network slices or if they will be able to enter the new business model profitably. The Communications Authority is studying the matter and has recently launched a fact-finding investigation on the use of licenses for the service to industrial sectors that may have an interest in directly and more securely controlling all devices connected to the network in logic internet of things and functional to the production or logistic process. But other sectors, from healthcare to agriculture, could also use local coverage to connect specific and delimited communities of users. An experiment of this type took place with a private mobile network on behalf of the Civil Protection in Emilia Romagna on the occasion of the earthquake. Some frequency bands, such as 26 Ghz, or the 3.8-4.2 Ghz band could lend themselves to use, in some cases in sharing with current uses.
The EU Communications Code
Precious indications on the regulation of frequencies for 5G will also come from the Italian implementation of the new European Code of electronic communications underway in recent weeks. Just yesterday, the terms for the participation of operators in the open consultation on the new Code closed: among the topics under examination “regulatory measures, methods of organization and radio spectrum management mechanisms that can favor the development of innovative projects and 5G” .