APEventiWEB: To conclude a successful 2022, the association of Proximity Operators meets for an online event
The solutions of partners, legislative news and fiscal opportunities, the New Year greetings from President Dino Bortolotto, and a new victory in the battle against sanctions on providers for blocking access to illegal content: many topics were on the table at APEventiWeb 1222, Assoprovider's streaming marathon broadcast on December 15.
Antonella Oliviero, national councilor of Assoprovider, and Marcello Cama, vice president of the association, introduce the proceedings.
"We will be together for this marathon dedicated to the topics we deal with daily: I thank Marcello for coordinating this experience and for giving us once again the opportunity to meet," explains Oliviero.
Cama continues by presenting the day's program: "Our four aces will speak, namely our consultants, legal and fiscal, lawyers Fulvio Sarzana and Vincenzo Gallotto, the regulatory consultant, engineer Alfredo Pasini, and the head of the AP-FINANCE-FISCO list, Dr. Roberto Iannaccone. They will be joined by our partners, both new and long-standing, who will present their solutions alongside the Ambassadors, the association members who handle colleagues' requests with partners, facilitating one-to-all communication. The day will be concluded by our president Dino Bortolotto," explains Cama.
Here you can review the complete event:
Huawei and Assoprovider Labs
Huawei ambassador and national advisor Davide Gelardi, together with Luca Vit, CTO of Huawei Enterprise Business Group Italy, discuss the new collaboration methods initiated between the Proximity Operators Association and the group.
"In the context of one of Assoprovider's Labs," Gelardi recounts, "we tested carrier-class routers: the goal was to assist members with configuration examples that included the main use cases, in order to translate the documentation into a more 'familiar' language."
In this way, Vit later explained, "we can speed up the introduction of machines by our partners. Even though the Huawei manuals, available online, allow for quick configuration, certainly offering example configurations was an important step forward to simplify the transition."
Facilitations and Opportunities for WISPs with Dr. Roberto Iannaccone
Together with the head of the AP-FINANCE-FISCO list, Roberto Iannaccone, we delve into some of the opportunities presented by facilitated finance for WISPs, which are diverse:
- Non-repayable grant Sustainable Investments 4.0, for expansion and diversification of activities;
- Tax credit for 4.0 training, a facilitative measure to be carefully considered as it provides a double benefit: taking advantage of the incentive itself (70% of eligible expenses) and offering the opportunity to train employees, providing a higher quality service;
- Tax credit for tangible and intangible assets 4.0, which concern the so-called interconnection, meaning that the eligible assets must exchange information with internal systems (management software, remote monitoring systems, and so on);
- Tax credit for investments in the South (Bonus Sud) for machinery, plants, and equipment that involve an investment project aimed at the company's production capacity;
- Connectivity Voucher for micro, small, and medium enterprises: all WISP companies can consider this voucher, which has recently been extended until the end of 2023
- Tax credit for energy-intensive companies, also intended for companies not with high energy consumption
The new Assoprovider board members: Alessio Cecchi (QBoxMail) and Massimiliano Fava (Microservizi)
It is time to introduce the newly elected national councilors of Assoprovider, the new entries Alessio Cecchi from QBoxMail and Massimiliano Fava from Microservizi.
"I have been a member of Assoprovider for several years," says Cecchi, "because I realized that here there is the opportunity to receive support from professionals and colleagues. I decided to run for the board of directors because I believe there are many new battles to fight, many rights to assert for us small providers, not necessarily related to infrastructure and connectivity, but also to cloud services, data management, and so on."
"I have twenty years of experience in the semiconductor and telecommunications sectors," explains Fava, "and I thought of putting it at the service of my colleagues: that's why I joined the board of directors. The motto is: unity is strength. Assoprovider represents, and will continue to represent, small and medium-sized enterprises in the telecommunications sector, to assert their reasons with the institutions."
Administrative sanctions on providers regarding inhibitions and privacy: a new victory for Assoprovider
Fulvio Sarzana, legal representative of Assoprovider, revisits the issue of the obligation for providers to block users' access to certain pages in violation of the regulations. A rule that "forces Italian providers to act as sheriffs," explains Sarzana, "and targets connectivity providers with heavy penalties, as if they themselves were committing an offense." An undertaking that demands enormous resources from Proximity Operators and is not compensated in any way. Administrative fines of 100/200 thousand euros are imposed.
However, the latest update is good news:
"One of the providers that received such a sanction decided to challenge the measure, with the help of Assoprovider, obtaining the suspension of the ordinance from an Italian court. When there is a suspension, almost always the judge sides with the party that sees the sanction annulled," explains Sarzana.
TP-Link Italia: solutions for Proximity Operators
With Alessandra Emmanuele, marketing manager at TP Link, we explore the solutions provided by the multinational for Local Operators to bring connectivity to both homes and businesses in Italy.
In particular, Emmanuele introduces Aginet, a specific solution for ISPs that, he explains, offers “an integration between a wide range of hardware devices with management software. In this way, without license costs, the WISP can operate on the device both with massive device configuration, reducing management times and remotely updating the firmware.”
Emmanuele continues with the presentation of TP-Link's range of devices, featuring state-of-the-art technologies, such as those configured for Wi-Fi 6, and the Omada Cloud Controller.
Disotec S.r.l.: Alessandro Marostica – One stop Solution for Tlc infrastructure
With Alessandro Marostica, Sales Office Manager of Disotec, an Assoprovider partner, we explore the company's products and solutions for any network architecture, both underground and aerial.
Disotec presents itself in the market as a "One stop solution for telecom infrastructures: we cover everything from the primary network, to the secondary, up to the drop building," explains Marostica.
The manager then delves into the details of the company's extensive commercial offering, which includes comprehensive solutions for the network:
- Outside plants: muffles, street cabinets, PFS/CNO, street pillars
- Oustide plants Aerial: cable anchoring and joint solutions
- Central Office: cabinets, subframes, and accessories
- Customer Premises: termination box, building optical splitters, user outlets
- Connectivity: optical sleeves and braces and splitters
FibreConnect: an innovative form of collaboration with Proximity Operators to wire Industrial Areas
Renzo Ravaglia, one of the three founders of FibreConncect, president and CEO, among the new Assoprovider partners, discusses a new collaboration proposal for Proximity Operators.
The company was established in February 2022 as a wholesale-only operator. Its industrial plan focuses entirely on artisanal industrial areas: "There are 14,000 in Italy, but there is very low fiber optic penetration here because urban centers have been prioritized," explains Ravaglia.
The major operators will hardly be interested in these areas: the goal is therefore to wire between 1,000 and 1,500 industrial and artisanal areas together with Proximity Operators.
In industrial areas, large operators do not reach, but rather Proximity Operators do.
"Our strategy is to wire the area to saturation, bringing fiber close to every potential customer. In this way, we can provide the service to the customer in just a few days," explains Ravaglia.
For more information about the project, you can contact Antonella Oliviero, Assoprovider ambassador for Fibre Connect.
Quality of services and relationships with end users
Together with lawyer Vincenzo Gallotto, we will then delve into the guarantees that the Proximity Operator must offer to the end user.
"The regulation," explains the lawyer, "requires the obligation to adopt a service charter, which outlines the services offered, the principles with which they are provided, and the contractual discipline. The operator is obliged to communicate their service charter to AGCOM thirty days before the start of activities, then publish it on their website and update it in case of changes."
Lawyer Gallotto then continues by illustrating the operators' obligations regarding the general conditions of the contract, focusing on quality indicators, which indicate the basic performance for a given offer concerning fixed telephony, mobile, connectivity. "Operators," the lawyer recalls, "are required to publicize the indicators to allow users to compare the offers of different companies in the sector."
Activating Parental Control: Problem or Opportunity?
Subsequently, it is the turn of Francesco Collini, CEO of FlashStart, a global AI-based DNS filter that protects against malware attacks and unwanted web content, who reminds us how Legislative Decree 28/2020 mandates the activation of Parental Control by ISPs and WISPs.
Even though at first glance it might seem like an additional problem to solve, the measure is actually an opportunity: "Thanks to filtering, the network works better, as malware slows down the bandwidth. In this way, the ISP will also receive fewer calls reporting potential connectivity issues," explains Collini.
During the presentation, the CEO of FlashStart illustrates the Lite solution, specifically designed for Internet Service Providers.
For more information, you can contact the company's ambassadors, Marcello Cama and Giuseppe Scinica.
SAP Scuola Aria Pulita, the new IoT project by Assoprovider
The floor is given to Marco Caldarazzo, a long-standing member of Assoprovider, who presents the SAP (Scuola Aria Pulita) project, sponsored by Assoprovider.
"A recent scientific study," explains Caldarazzo, "has demonstrated the correlation between air quality and learning ability. Our project involves the installation of sensors that measure CO2 present in the classrooms: the collected data is then sent via the Lorawan protocol, encrypted end-to-end, making it in an easily readable format. The information is finally recorded on the Algorand blockchain.
The intent of the project is twofold, explains Caldarazzo: to demonstrate to operators that Lorawan is a great opportunity and to create a concrete, highly demanded application that can be used immediately.
"We have launched a pilot project in San Giorgio a Cremano (NA) with partner Nowtech by Antonio Aprea and, next week, it will be the turn of the municipality of Sora with partner Connetta," concludes Caldarazzo.
The Assoprovider 5G Laboratory
Among the new entries of Assoprovider partners is OpNet, the company born on October 3rd from a "branch" of Linkem: "OpNet was created from the spin-off of Linkem's activities related to services, a business branch that later merged into Tiscali," says Gabriella Mauro, Head of Communication of the company. She continues, explaining how the company now has a new business model, "from a vertically integrated operator to a Wholesale wireless 5G operator, inheriting Linkem's infrastructure assets."
The company's mission is inscribed in OpNet, which is indeed an abbreviation for Open Network: "We are open to all telecommunications operators. For this reason, together with Assoprovider, we have decided to create a 5G laboratory, which will be launched in 2023," explains Mauro.
Ehiweb Mobile is born
Gilberto Di Maccio, national councilor of Assoprovider, talks about the new direction taken by his Ehiweb, which became a mobile operator on November 8th. "It is an ultra-competitive market," says Di Maccio, "but we have already activated 300 SIMs in about twenty days of activity."
Ehiweb Mobile offers three plans for different types of customers, targeting individuals, businesses, and providing specific plans for IoT and Backup.
The sales strategy is twofold: on one hand, offering a complete package, both fixed and mobile, to new consumers, and on the other hand, upselling to long-standing customers, increasing loyalty.
"We have embarked on this path because we are convinced that we are increasingly entering the era of convergence between mobile and fiber," explains Di Maccio.
Namex Bari and Namex Napoli: IXP towards Proximity Operators
Here is the map of all the exchange points present in Italy, illustrated during his speech by Maurizio Goretti, General Manager of Namex, the non-profit consortium that has initiated the creation of new regional IXP in Bari and Naples just in the last few weeks.
"Namex today is also opening regional exchange points, because we see that peering is moving towards the edge: content needs to be increasingly closer to the user. That's why we need to be more widespread. We can say that exchange points are moving towards proximity," says Goretti.
Gestisci come non ti aspettavi: ConsolONE di Smartnet
Marco Pirone, CTO of Smartnet, illustrates the ConsolONE solution, a comprehensive monitoring system that allows companies to control all their resources in real time.
"All technologies are converging towards a single network infrastructure and, in this perspective, IT can become an essential service on which everything else converges," explains Pirone.
The platform thus assists management in integrating the various company sections from security to Human Resources, all in a single solution. Pirone illustrates successful case histories such as the Maradona stadium in Naples.
The Electronic Communications Code: One Year Later
Engineer Alfredo Pasini, Assoprovider's consultant for regulations, reviews the implementation of the Electronic Communications Code approximately one year after its entry into force.
Pasini recalls some successes, such as the reduction of contributions for the granting of rights to use radio spectrum, decreased in some cases by up to 70%. However, he also highlights some critical issues. For example, consider the failure to eliminate the increased contribution of 30% for links used in linear polarization.
Article 60, which provided for the optimal and most effective and efficient use of the radio spectrum, has also been disregarded: "To date, the principle has not been applied," explains Pasini, "just as the clauses regarding the loss of unused rights based on the 'use it or lose it' principle have remained unheeded."
Pasini also focused on the obligations for Operators arising from the new regulation: two in particular, the 24-month contract duration, and the obligation to present a concise and easily readable contract summary.
Greetings from President Dino Bortolotto
The conclusions are entrusted to the president of Assoprovider, Dino Bortolotto, who wanted to extend a wish for the new year to all connected operators:
"I hope that next year, to all the battles won in the past, we can add some pieces in favor of the entire ISP community."
Bortolotto recalled how, "after more than twenty years, the principles we advocated at the beginning of our journey are now fully implemented." He then strongly reiterated that "the only entities that have truly contributed to reducing the digital divide in these 20 years have been the local operators, who have grown significantly in terms of technology, economically, and in skills."