Broadband or Not, Italy Is In The Stone Age When It Comes to Internet Access

Over the last few days, while the Italian government is working on its budget, part of the political debate has focused on the apparent lack of 800 million euro for investments in broadband which had been announced earlier.

While I have no strong feeling either way, I thought I would share a Facebook message I got earlier today from my Italian friend Ugo, who has been living in Germany for many years :

Dear Andrea,

I just had a recent experience about Italy and the Web ...

which I wanted to share with you due to your experience in this field and in eGov.

I did a 10 day trip from Germany to the Netherlands, Italy, Slovenia and back.

Arrived in Leiden (NL) I had WiFi access immediately, at no cost and with no restriction from anywhere, even in the taxi waiting at the traffic lights.

Then I went to a conference in Venice (I): no access to available WLans, the host had to install a specific Wlan for the conference participants, each of us had to give credentials before getting a personal access code for single use, and after 6 pm the Wlan was down since the tech-guys went home (no joke). In the hotel no WLan but LAN with same ID procedure and some Euros each half hour. In both cases I could NOT synchronize with my mail server, since they configured the access in such a way that this was not allowed!! So I had to log onto my provider’s mail system to read/send mails!. After some days there I went to Caorle (50 km from Venice), where in summer there are 8 internet points (4 of which wireless). In winter…. only 3! Further they are expensive and with opening times like shops (closing at 18:00, sat/sun). Incidentally, everyone I met at those internet points was very angry for having to make photocopies of personal documents, and register time and computer or access code connected to it: nice thought, consume paper for being allowed into the digital world

Then I went to Slovenia… Hotel…WiFi running everywhere for free. I was in 2 bars + 1 Institute… free WiFi without access restrictions anywhere…

Is the Italian Government aware that ARPA started 40  years ago, in 1969? The Illusion of being able to control content by restricting access is complete nonsense. Who is making such rules? Are they ever traveling themselves? The only result is that Italy increases the gap to the 2nd to last country and produces angry and Web-illiterate (young) people.

It is ironic that Ugo had so many issues in a city like Venice, which praises itself for having a world class WiFi infrastructure for all citizens. Maybe, as a visitor, he was not seen as a customer.

While supporters of broadband investments will read this as a clear proof that those investments are required, one interpretation is that – does not matter how much bandwidth is available – a country and a culture that do not value customer service is unlikely to use it very wisely.

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