Italy

[IT] Government Will Be Able to Reduce the Number of Licenses for UMTS

IRIS 2000-7:1/30

Marina Benassi

Attorney at law

The current Telecommunication Authority decided on 1 June 2000 that the Italian government would be allowed to cut the number of UMTS licenses that can be obtained (at present the actual number is five), when five or fewer bids are received. The Italian Authority, moreover, considered the competence of the government with regard to the possibility of postponing the deadline for applications. Following the allocation of the 5 UMTS licenses, the Authority will leave room for a second auction, to be reserved for "new entries". This second auction will oversee the adjudication of two extra portions of the spectrum. The run on the UMTS licenses is at present dominated by the four biggest telephone license owners: TIM, OMNITEL, WIND and BLUE. Quite a few Italian and foreign runners-up are listed among the possible applicants. The rules for assigning the five UMTS licenses will be published towards the end of July. The assignment of UMTS licenses is deemed to be one of the main topics in Europe for the coming months. This is also due to the importance of other areas covered by UMTS beside the field of "pure" telecommunication infrastructure; the future developments of UMTS technology will remain very relevant in multimedia and audio-visual services applied to mobile telephony.