Vice President Gianbattista Frontera denounces the changes to law 31/2013 because they hinder independent providers and slow down the digitization of the Region.

PERUGIA 7 JUNE 2021

A modification to a law that tramples on the rights of proximity operators. Assoprovider, the association of independent providers, expresses astonishment and disappointment, with the words of its vice president Gianbattista Frontera on the substantial amendment of the regional law 31/2013, which occurred with the council resolution DGR no. 437 of 12/05/2021.

A law that, among other things, effectively eliminated the exemption for providers from fees for crossing regional state-owned land for laying fiber optics: "The amendment to the law affected us even more as we felt it was ours, since we, as Assoprovider, participated in its drafting," continues Frontera.

The removal of exemptions is not the only amendment to the law that:

• It no longer allows the Umbria Region to take an active role in harmonizing regulations and rules for underground/aboveground telecommunications infrastructure, both at the provincial and municipal levels;
• Abolish the telecommunications council, a body that allowed for permanent dialogue with stakeholders;
• It no longer automatically allows all operators to have access to rent the over 600 km of regionally-owned fiber.

"After 5 years of inaction by the previous administration, as a diligent part in the application of the law, with the new administration, the 'storytelling' of cutting regional regulation in the digitalization sector is being promoted, as if regulatory uncertainty were an accelerating factor, in such a delicate moment for our Country and the Region," asserts Frontera.

"The transition from the previous administration to the current one," continues the vice president of Assoprovider, "with a different political orientation in the regulation of the telecommunications sector, has a 'gattopardesco' aspect where: 'we change everything, to change nothing,'" concludes the vice president of Assoprovider.