New Antitrust Decision On Telecommunications Network Offering

The Italian Antitrust Authority has issued on October 30, 1997 a new decision on the offering of fixed networks by the incumbent operator Telecom Italia which reflects substantially on the possibility for competing operators to realize and implement specific transmission necessities.

As known, until 1998 Telecom Italia is the exclusive provider of the public telecommunications network and of dedicated lines in Italy. It also currently holds a dominant market position in the rendering of liberalized telecommunications services.

On April 1996, telecommunications service provider Albacom (a British Telecom - Mediaset - BNL joint venture) requested the lease of dedicated lines from Telecom Italia for the offering of data transmission and telephony services for Closed User Groups, with a transmission capacity between 64 Kbps (Kilobit per second) and 2 Mbps (Megabit per second). Telecom Italia denied such request on the basis that the fees and contributions for dedicated lines in an