“The network will remain the exclusive property of the monopolist Tim”
“In fact, I have serious doubts about the fact that Tim’s offer can be substantially counted among the forms of co-investment provided for by art. 76 of European Code of Electronic Communications. This article aims on the one hand to favor, in an environment of infrastructural competition, investments in very high-capacity networks and, on the other hand, provides for a limitation of the corrective measures to be borne by the monopoly operator. However, Tim’s co-investment consists of a sort of long-term lease of large quantities of lines to co-investing operators, who at the end of the co-investment period will not be owners of even a line. The network, also realized thanks to their contribution, will remain the exclusive property of the monopolist Tim“.
Commissioner Agcom declares it, Elisa Giomi. “On 3 January – he continues – the Authority’s Council resolved by majority vote to launch a public consultation on Tim’s co-investment offer for the construction of a new fiber optic network up to the premises of end users. I voted contrary for reasons of merit and for reasons of method, which I believe is important to make public in order to promote reflection in the interest of the institution, its independence and effectiveness “.
According to Commissioner Giomi, moreover, the deregulation of the monopolist in the face of a co-investment offer capable of attracting network investments from other operators is an incentive mechanism that also aims tod ensure the public interest and in this regard affirms: “This interest here consists in the creation of a technologically neutral and open network, distributed throughout the national territory. And instead Tim’s co-investment offer does not go in this direction, it does not contribute to the coverage of gray areas, nor ‘to the development of 5G networks, certainly strategic objectives for the country “.
In the method, the most important resolutions on co-investment were taken by the Council on the basis of partial documentation and yet often amounting to hundreds of pages, made available only a few days before the board meeting. “The postponements that I therefore requested – specifies the Commissioner – in order to be able to examine all the preliminary documentation in a reasonable time and make proposals for improvement of the co-investment offer have not, in essence, ever been granted and the proposals have been rejected without reasons on the merits , as happened in the meeting of last January 3 “. From the start of the investigation on March 31, 2021 to now, the operators have never been made known about the procedural process nor have they been allowed to express their opinion on the proposed changes to AGCOM to the conditions of co-investment by Tim.
The same public consultation just launched submits to the market a single generic question instead of questions focused on the most important issues, which conditions and forms of access to co-investment by operators with a differentiated degree of infrastructure. Yet, it is precisely these issues that have the greatest influence on the coverage of gray areas, on the development of 5G networks and on the related public funding. The start of the public consultation, however, took place without the Board having been informed of the request for an opinion from Agcm (Antitrust) regarding the commitments presented by Tim itself in the context of the procedure for an agreement to restrict competition (commitments strongly overlapping the dossier under examination at Agcom).
Furthermore, the Council only learned on January 3 of the recent decision with which the Offices approved the offer of services on the primary section of the optical access network, of which Tim is almost a monopoly, and which therefore has a potentially significant impact on the co-investment. Another element of the press release of the Authority dated January 3 that deserves further attention is the statement that the evaluations of the co-investment offer concerned the version sent by Tim on December 22, 2021.
In reality, the Council of the Authority in the meeting of 3 January had a consolidated text version available by Tim dated 3 December 2021, which would seem to have been completely replaced by a latest version sent by Tim on 10 December 2021 although this the latest version does not carry that date. It is therefore not clear which consolidated version of Tim’s co-investment offer was subject to approval by the Authority on January 3rd.. “I hope that the public consultation can be an opportunity to constructively rethink Tim’s co-investment offer in the interest of the market, users and the public good” says Commissioner Giomi.
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