Italy’s next generation network (NGN) committee is in tatters, after FastWeb, Vodafone and Wind quit the organization yesterday.
The trio were among seven alternative carriers that withdrew from the committee, claiming it wasn’t considering their views, and sided almost entirely with incumbent Telecom Italia when drawing up proposals designed to ease the transition from copper to fiber infrastructure.
Aiip, TeleTu, Welcome Italia and Tiscali joined the leading trio in vowing to take their complaints to regulator AGCOM.
“The committee failed to take into consideration the contributions of all alternative operators and didn’t represent their positions in its proposed guidelines,” the firms said in a joint statement.
“Moreover, the committee’s guidelines reflected almost completely Telecom Italia’s requests.”
Italy’s NGN committee was established to create guidelines covering the switch to fiber infrastructure.
FastWeb, Vodafone and Wind unveiled plans to rollout fiber to 10 million people in 15 cities by 2015 in May.
The three are investing €2.5 billion in the plan, and could extend their network by investing a further €6 billion to boost coverage to 50% of the population.
That footprint would match Telecom Italia’s planned fiber coverage by 2018, however the incumbent has resisted calls from AGCOM to join the rival broadband project, despite the regulator considering the collaboration as essential to bring Italy in-line with European neighbors in terms of fiber deployment.