The country that can lay claim to offering some of the greatest contributions in the world of telecommunications seems to be going through a rough patch right now.
The Italian government has recently cancelled an 800 million investment that was meant to bring 20mb broadband to 96% of Italians and guarantee 2mb for everyone else. This has sparked a flurry of complaints from all parties and has also reminded many of the failing of the current system where broadband speed advertised as 7mb are often much less than 2mb.
Many also complain about the lack of transparency in the various plans offered by Italian telecoms companies. However, there are some rays of hope.
Cellular technology is at a very mature stage, while they have just started to adapt their mobile
broadband solutions making it possible to use a mobile phone to connect to the Internet at reasonable speeds. Also, British Telecom, one of the leading UK broadband service provider and its partner in Italian telecommunication have planned to invest 1.5bn euros in the next 5 years to provide full telecom and broadband facilities in Italy.
UK's satellite operator Avanti Communications has signed a deal with Broadcast SRL in Italy to provide more coverage using satellite broadband service in rural Italy. New investments are made by UK private sectors for expert research, which focus on Italy and UK broadband service
comparison, and helps to enhance better market in Italy.
Let us hope that all these plans come to fruition. Italians owe it to people like Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian Nobel prize winner "in recognition of his contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy" and Antonio Meucci the inventor of the telephone. It is a little known fact that even the U.S. House of Representatives has
admitted that Meucci is the original inventor of the telephone whose only failing was that he did not have the money to pay for the patent which permitted Alexander Bell to lay claim to the achievement.
