On January 22 and February 5, 1998, the Italian Ministry of Communications has issued the Decrees on the filing expenses and yearly contributions due for the offering of general authorization and individual license telecommunications services in Italy. The two decrees contain the detailed amounts due by operators interested in the servicing of new applications and services in the Italian territory or specific basins.

With regards to the issuing of general authorizations, operators must correspond an administrative fee of 1 million lira is for services offered in one Italian region, whereas 10 million lira are due for services offered in more than one region.

With respect to the offering of services subject to the obtaining of individual licenses (i.e. voice telephony services, fixed and cable public networks, mobile and personal communications and assignment of radio frequencies) the mechanism introduced by the Decree foresees a general filing fee (from 20 million Italian lira for a population of 200,000 up to 120 million Italian lira for the whole of the national territory) and a yearly contribution determined on the size of the market potentially served. For the setting up and supplying of fixed public telecommunications networks (including radio connections or use of DECT technology), the yearly contribution is of 20 million Italian lira for the offering in an area with a population of 200,000 individuals, and reaches 120 million Italian lira for the national offering of such service. For the supply of voice services the yearly contribution figures are substantially similar.

The annual fee for the use of radio frequencies may vary, depending on the wavelength and the frequency, from a minimum of 300,000 lira to a maximum of 12,600,000 lira.

A particular mention must be made to the costs related to the allocation of numbers for operators, which constitute a limited resourse. The annual fee for the concession of telephone numbers is the following:

1) for a group of standard format numbers, 20 lira per number;
2) for a code of 3 digits, 100 million lira; of 4 digits, 50 million lira;
3) for access codes of 4 digits, 200 million lira; of 5 digits, 100 million lira.

The indicated fees are reduced of 50% in case the allocation of the numbers is requested for provisional experimental needs.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.