Assoprovider's battles are everyone's battles. The association's podcast series continues with contributions from Sicetelecom, TP-Link, and AVM, and editorial support from Radio IT. In the fourth episode, we discuss the battle to liberalize Wi-Fi in Italy.

The history of the Internet in Italy has been shaped primarily by many small Internet Service Providers – proximity operators as we like to call them – who experimented with new techniques to bridge the digital divide in small towns across the peninsula (and sometimes even in cities).

Matteo Fici, founder and administrator of Assoprovider, and Marco Piai, national advisor of Assoprovider, narrate in the new Assoprovider-branded podcast how they experimented on sidecars and quads, with receiving antennas, to verify the coverage of their radio link internet services across the territory, that is, without cables.

Listen to the full episode here: https://assoprovider.it/4podcastfb

The focus of this fourth meeting with "Battaglie della Rete" is precisely on the liberalization of Wi-Fi connectivity, particularly for last-mile connection.

Telecom returns as a monopolist with ADSL

To begin the story of this battle, Antonio Ruggiero, treasurer of Assoprovider. 

Today, ADSL is a widespread and common tool. Twenty years ago, when the first network pioneers in Italy were starting the experiments we described, it was not possible to use it freely.

Assoprovider's battle enabled the liberalization of wireless connectivity through radio links, which allowed Internet access even in market failure areas.

Everything began in 2002, with the so-called "Salva Provider" law, of which we discussed in the previous episode. As Ruggiero explains, after that regulation equating ISPs with telecommunications companies, proximity operators “they begin to experiment with wireless data transmission technologies to provide Internet connection to households and businesses where ADSL is not available.

The experimentation, sometimes adventurous, as in the examples of Fici and Piai, is however interrupted by a new ministerial decree: approved in May 2003, the provision limits wifi connectivity only to designated areas, such as airports, hotels, beaches, swimming pools, and the like.

In essence, Ruggiero recalls, "it is no longer possible to use it to cover the so-called last mile, that is, to bring broadband to users not covered by ADSL.

These are the early years of ADSL diffusion, which represents a faster transmission line compared to the 56k or 128k that were prevalent until then, but still on a telephone line. Where the cable does not reach, fast Internet does not reach either. To further worsen the scenario, as Fici recalls, "ADSL connections are produced only by Telecom Italia, which has the technology entirely in-house: the company is, in fact, once again a monopolist, while the business model of ISPs is completely called into question..

The experimentation of radio links and the political battle

Assoprovider and proximity operators are working to address the issue, focusing on two fronts. 

The first is that of the aforementioned experimentation, initiated with ministerial authorization, on radio connectivity (wireless indeed), which allows, explains Fici, "to improve bandwidth speed by five or six times compared to the standards of the time". Among the first projects, the one initiated by Piai in five schools in Piedmont.

For about two years, ISPs like Piai must continue to request authorization from the ministry for their experiments, to continue projects like those in schools, because the telecom code does not allow for the possibility of connecting the last mile via radio link. And even today, explains the national Assoprovider advisor, "there are bureaucratic limitations that do not allow us to operate freely. 

The first line of resistance for local operators is therefore experimentation. The second is political dialogue.

First with Maurizio Gasparri, then replaced by Mario Landolfi after a government reshuffle, Assoprovider engages with the Ministry of Telecommunications to liberalize the use of wi-fi connectivity,thus aligning Italian legislation with that of other European countries”, says Ruggiero.

The relationship with Landolfi seems promising. The minister is indeed from Campania, like Marcello Cama, another of Assoprovider's historical pillars. Specifically, he is from Mondragone (CE), the headquarters of IC Network of Nino Morrone, another long-standing member of Assoprovider: he recounts that he grew up with Landolfi.

The two parties therefore meet just one month after the new head of the ministry takes office. Unfortunately, as Cama recounts, "in July 2005, Al-Qaeda attacks the London Underground: the state of emergency is triggered across Europe and the then Minister of the Interior Pisano halts the liberalization of the Internet, to prevent jihadists from communicating with each other.

Everything seems to come to a standstill. But Assoprovider does not give up: the members and the minister decide on a new meeting in Mondragone. Here, Landolfi explains that, in the few months remaining before the end of the legislature, he wants to make a mark.

Matteo Fici and his associates then remind him that the decree for liberalization is already there, ready in the association's drawer, given the work previously done with Gasparri."In just a few days, we achieve the liberalization of wi-fi", then Fici recounts, “and we take a new step forward towards overcoming the digital divide in our country”. 

As Matteo Fici recalls, this battle "led to one of Assoprovider's most important achievements: indeed, wireless continues to operate and bring broadband to many areas of Italy, in cities as well as in more peripheral areas”.

Read also: [APodcast] Assoprovider and the battle of the small against the big (and the law of the strongest)
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