Communications Regulatory Authority

Figure 1.19. National market of fixed network services, voice and data* (€ billion)
Source: IDC, 2006 | * It does not include dial-up Internet access services which are
included in the "Internet services" area
Furthermore, the trend of revenues from voice traffic suffers from the significant
reduction of unit prices of fixed-to-mobile traffic as a consequence of the regulatory
measures adopted by AGCOM (within the market evaluation No. 16 among those
identified in the European Commission recommendation of 2003; cf. paragraph 2.1.)
during the year concerning the reduction of voice call termination maximum charges on
mobile operators’ networks. In particular, for the fixed-to-mobile traffic, AGCOM
assessed a benefit for end users equal to a reduction of expenses of about 1,835 million
euros in the period from 1 st September 2005 to 1 st July 2008. As shown in the table
concerning the trend of minutes of traffic below (table 1.3.), during 2005 the increase in
traffic volumes towards mobile was not enough to offset the reduction of unit prices.
Indeed, the reduced growth of this type of traffic, in conjunction with pressure on unit
prices, resulted in a drop in revenues of about 7%.
Still with reference to voice segment, last year was characterized also by the
introduction of a number of product innovations. First of all, there was a noticeable
increase in VoIP operators and offers, with the success of these services starting from
the last four-month period of 2005: the number of operators offering voice services on
Internet protocol increased and prices were cut many times. Most of VoIP operators
propose offers entirely based on consumption and offers in which the payment of a
monthly fee enables the user to make unlimited calls to numbers of national fixed
network. In order to boost the spreading of the service in an environment protecting
consumers’ interests AGCOM intervened with a light regulation which defined rights
and duties for VoIP service providers and envisaged changes for numbering plan and
use of numbers for VoIP, number portability and emergency services (cf. paragraph
2.2.).
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