Without being too specific, Ernesto Pascale, chairman of La Societa Italiana per L’Esercizio delle Telecomunicazioni, says that the Italian telephone operator expects its net profit to be up by over $326m on the 1990 figure. He says that at the same time as the growth in yields is above that of last year, industrial manufacturing overheads fell, thereby producing a higher net profit. The state phone company claims that service has improved, and that phones come on-line within 17 days, as opposed to 33 days, and that 91.8% of data connections are made in a fixed period, a dramatic improvement on the 1990’s figure of 40%. Despite recent changes that seem to undermine SIP’s monopoly, Pascale is bullish about the future. The adoption of tariff criteria characterised by clear rules, he says, is the best guarantee of SIP’s continued development.
