The chief executive of La Societa Italiana per l’esercizio delle telecomunicazioni pA used the forum on mobile telephony, Mobicom ’92, to send a conciliatory message to the representatives of three of the private operators-in-waiting. Instead of separating into competing, litigating segments, Italian industry should unite to meet the challenge of international competition, said Vito Gamberale, chief administrator for the phone service operator. If we put together the aggregate revenues of all of the companies that aspire to become a second operator, it would reach 10% of Gross Nantional Product, he said. This means that 10% of the GNP is, essentially, fighting a civil war, whereas the constructive alternative is to find together a means for doubling that amount. We must realise that, unfortunately, we have not had the chance to meet: there have been many debates, seminars, interviews, much sensationalising, but never a meeting at a table where we could talk seriously about industry projects and evaluate the actual competitive situation in mobile telephony, which is not as simple and mundane as it is made to appear, Gamberale added. In summary, Gamberale said SIP is not opposed to the opening of the GSM network to a second operator, but only under three conditions: protection of its shareholders and a wide-ranging liberalisation, with clear rules valid for everyone that would allow competition on price as well as service, and the creation of a state regulator. The consortia representative, Tommaso Pompei, vice-president of Pronto Italia, a joint venture between financial backer Sviluppo, 15 medium-sized Italian companies and Pacific Telesis; Ernesto Musumeci, president of Omnitel, the Olivetti-Bell Atlantic-Televerket consortium; and Nicolo Nefri, president of Unitel, which comprises Fiat, Fininvest and Vodafone Plc affirmed at the symposium that building a new network would relaunch investment and employment, creating approximately 10,000 new jobs. Above all, they said, it would widen the range of services for new categories of users. Gamberale was not as enthusiastic about the merits of deregulation. It’s true, in fact, that in certain European countries there is a second operator for mobile telephony. But it’s wise to remember that in Great Britain the system, on the whole, is loss-making [news to us], that in Germany, Mannesmann would have difficulty taking the same decisions it made in 1988, when it entered the cellular market, and that in France the opening [of the market] was decided only to avoid, with a logic of a strong, total defence of the national system, that foreign suppliers would insert themselves into the national market. La SIP is ready to meet with anyone, but it can’t renounce the protection of its own sacrosanct rights and legitimate interests. It can’t, above all, forget its 74,000 shareholders.
