The CEO of a leading telecommunications company today called for a borderless Europe with a single digital market to be created as part of a bid to stimulate investment in next generation networks in Europe.
Italtel's CEO Stefano Pileri made the call to action as he attended the institutional program of Digital Venice, 2014, the meeting promoted by the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers with the support of the European Commission.
His comments form part of the Venice Declaration which was unveiled at the event and has the aim of restoring confidence in the European institutions and clearly defining the actions to be pursued to achieve the Digital Europe set out in the European Digital Agenda 2020.
"We need to create a ‘borderless' Europe with a single digital market," said Pileri. "No European company is ranked among the top ten ICT companies; the market is fragmented and hampered by regulation. We need to create a single set of rules for the whole of Europe in order to stimulate investment in next generation networks and ensure a fair return on that investment. The rules must be pro-business, encourage investment and ensure a fair return, especially in regards to fixed and mobile access (LTE/LTE Advanced/5G) network investment."
In order for Europe to seize the opportunity the Digital Agenda represents, Pileri recommends four key actions should be taken: Invest in the creation of the "enabler" of the future or the "digital infrastructure" also with public-private partnerships that use structural funding and encourage dialogue between national governments and Europe. Comparison programs and cultural exchange to share best technological practice between different European countries should also be enabled and constant monitoring of how public money made available by the European Union is spent is required to ensure it doesn't go missing.
The Italtel CEO also urged that Europe reconfirm the goal to reach an Ultra-Fast Internet infrastructure, as already defined by the European Digital Agenda 2020.
Pileri continued: "We need to recognize, within the new Ultra Fast Internet Infrastructures, the value of differentiation of Quality of Service and Quality of Interconnection, while also ensuring net neutrality, because they represent an accelerator of value and act as a catalyst for investment."
According to Pileri, European research and innovation policies with well-defined objectives should also be created to focus on four technologies of the digital revolution: Ultra Fast Internet, Big Data, Cloud and Internet of Things.
"Digital technologies, processes and skills are the "X factor" we must rely on to regain competitiveness, restart growth and create new jobs," concluded Pileri. "The Digital Agenda is the cornerstone of the policies for growth that Europe wants to implement and consequently Public European and Member States funds should not be considered in the "Fiscal Compact" principle."
The Internet of Things revolution was also discussed by Italtel in Venice as part of the workshop ‘Can the Internet of Everything bring back the High-Growth Economy in Europe?', which takes place at the Future Center on July 8, 2014.
Maurizio Tondi, Market Development & Offering EMEA, Italtel, took part in the panel ‘The new generations of applications, systems and technological architectures in the perspective of the Internet of Everything.'
"Everything will become part of the Internet of Things; from Smart Homes to entire Smart Cities, and even Smart Environments," said Tondi. "Today more than 99% of objects remain offline but this will not be the case for long and to support this and the evolution of the Internet of Things, it is necessary to enable the infrastructure.
"Networks with new features that are able to support increasing bandwidth requirements, have low latency, are able to auto-configure and optimize network resources, and, most importantly, have the capability to deliver any end-user service as an exciting new experience are absolutely essential."
It is with these new networks in mind that Italtel's Research and Development team continues to work on new innovations in Software Defined Networking and Self Organizing Networks.
