Italian Fines for Wi Fi: in force Legislative Decree 198/2010 on the obligation to use a licensed contractor for telecommunications equipment (ie routers).

It ‘s came into force on December 15, 2010 October 26, 2010 Italian Legislative Decree No 198, entitled “Implementation of Directive 2008/63/CE on competition in markets for telecommunications terminal equipment.” which reaffirms the need to have specific ministerial authorizations to carry out “network user” to be connected to public network.

The rule had given rise to doubts and concerns on the occasion of the presentation by the Italian Government, at the end of October last year, but he was then heard nothing.

Well the rule, without any change to the text adopted by the government in late October of 2010 came into force in fact, in mid-December by publication in the Official Gazette 280 of 30 November.

The rule has been commented on in recent days by the main users of the law,  the licensed contractors, through an article in the major Italian financial daily newspaper  “Il sole 24 ore”  http://www.b2b24.ilsole24ore.com/articoli/0, _ART_139208 1254.24, 00 . html  with the significant title of “The fines for the wi-fi” DIY: Assotel approves the new decree. ”

The journalist Massimiliano Cassinelli interview Gaetano Montingelli, “voice” of the Association ASSOTEL providing authoritative firsthand some of the interpretations of the standard.

According Montingelli the rule, which had done so much talk about the need to provide an installer authorized by the Ministry of Communications (now Economic Development) for a single router, you should not apply to a single device (which would be a router domestic) according  to the fact that even under the old rules, now repealed, provided for exceptions related to the individual apparatus.

In truth the new rule does not make reference to the number of devices but with a different concept or to “cases where, due to the simplicity ‘constructive and functional terminal equipment and related systems of connection, users can make their own to activity ‘referred to in paragraph 1 “.

The specifications of the equipment (and the scope of this last paragraph) will be given by a decree of the Minister of Economic Development to be issued within twelve months after the entry into force of Legislative Decree 198/2010.

There remain some doubts at this point: the first is under the byline of “competition in the markets for telecommunications terminal equipment.”

It is not clear how it can develop competition in a rule which, although well-meant, introduces fines of up to 150 000 € for those not authorized by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (remember that this is the transposition of a European directive on relies on the premise that telecommunications between the concept of free movement of services within the EU).

The second is the wi fi.

Installers in fact are a model as a model of the wi fi installation of equipment that falls within the “dark” of the new law with fines of up to 150 000 €.

In a context of generalized “enthusiasm” for the liberalization of the burden of identification for users wi fi we risk creating a further constraint to the spread of wi fi (which again seems to contrast with the title of the standard “competition in the markets for equipment telecommunications terminal equipment “) and you will therefore make it quite clear in the decree implementing the scope of the rule and its extension to wi-fi devices to prevent the onset of the inevitable disputes.

ASSOTEL the course is good to remember the professionalism employed by tele installers and the need to preserve the investments already made and to be made, even if the reference to a “behavior change” already in place in the operators, mentioned by Montingelli, under entry into force of the new fines, and the delineation of a scenario in which companies “run” to ask permission (with the rise of bureaucracy and economic dependents thereof) may seem somewhat at odds with the function driving competition and market liberalization is expected to have a rule of this kind.

Fulvio Sarzana

www.fulviosarzana.it
Studio Legale Roma Sarzana & Associati
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