Ministry outlines Italian broadband vision.(CONFERENCE NEWS)

At the opening presentation of the FTTH Conference, Dr. Roberto Sambuco of the Italian Ministry of Economic Development described Italy's ambitions for the information and communications technology industry.

"I am convinced that the future for communications will be different. There will no longer be a distinction between the on-line and the off-line worlds. We will be always on and the access will be automatic and involuntary. The simple act of being born will signify getting on to the Internet."

But is this more than just a visionary statement? "The future is closer than you think," Sambuco claimed.

The Italian government is putting its legislative might and financial backing behind a plan to remove network bottlenecks and accelerate FTTH deployment across the country.

Next-generation infrastructure is a government priority that requires action and cannot be left to market forces, Sambuco added. Governments that don't act now could really damage the economic competitiveness of their country; and the longer they delay, the harder it will be to close the gap.

Set against this national imperative and ambition, however, is the fact that it is not possible to spend public money easily and certainly not to waste it. The proposed solution--the middle ground--is that the government should act as a temporary entrepreneur, replacing the market for a short period of time.

The vehicle for this is a public-private partnership to build out the passive communications infrastructure across Italy. Within 10 years, the state plans to withdraw from the company and leave the infrastructure to the market.

Accordingly, in November 2010, Paolo Romani, the Minister of Economic Development, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 20 telecommunications operators in Italy. A group of operators, including FastWeb, Vodafone Italy, and Wind, have already build a pilot network in a neighborhood of Rome, which will inform the technical and business decisions for future deployments.

"We wait with great interest to see if this is a model that could be followed elsewhere in Europe," commented Chris Holden, president of the FTTH Council Europe.