The Internet country code
top-level domain
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...
(ccTLD) for Italy is
.it
.it is the national top-level domain (ccTLD) assigned to Italy.
Registration is open to organisations and individuals of legal age who are citizens or residents of/headquartered in the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), the Vatica ...
and is sponsored by
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
The National Research Council (Italian: ''Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, CNR'') is the largest research council in Italy. As a public organisation, its remit is to support scientific and technological research. Its headquarters are in Rome. ...
. The
.eu
.eu is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the European Union (EU). Launched on 7 December 2005, the domain is available for any person, company or organization based in the European Union. This was extended to the European Economic Are ...
domain is also used, as it is shared with other European Union member states.
Currently Internet access is available to businesses and home users in various forms, including dial-up, fiber, cable, DSL, and wireless.
History
Average Speed
According to netindex.com, the Italian average for fixed connections is below the global average (96.98 Mbit/s Down and 51.28 Mbit/s Up at january 2021) with an average speed of 79.62 Mbit/s Down and 31.41 Mbit/s in upload (consideration based on the public data available at: http://www.speedtest.net/global-index/italy - January 2021).
Overview
According to data released by the fibre-to-the-home (
FTTH
Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber op ...
) Council Europe, Italy represents one of the largest FTTH markets in Europe, with more than 2.5 million homes passed by fibre at end-December 2010;
[Will Italy have the best FTTH network in Europe?](_blank)
''FTTH Council Europe.'' Web. 02 Dec. 2012. at the same date the country reported around 348,000 fibre subscribers.
The "Fibre for Italy" project (with the participation of providers
Fastweb,
Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
, Vod ...
and
Wind
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few ho ...
in a co-investment partnership) aims to reach 20 million people in Italy's 15 largest cities by 2015,
and Telecom Italia plans to connect 138 cities by 2018.
The government has also started the Italia Digitale project, which aims to provide at least 50% of Italians with high-speed internet access by 2020. The government aims to extend the fibre-optic network to rural areas.
While
ADSL2+
G.992.5 (also referred to as ADSL2+, G.dmt.bis+, and G.adslplus) is an ITU-T standard for asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband Internet access. The standard has a maximum theoretical downstream sync speed of 24 megabits per second ...
with speeds up to 20/1 Mbit/s is still the most widely common subscription available in Italy, the main telephone company in the country (TIM or
Telecom Italia
Gruppo TIM, legally TIM S.p.A. (formerly Telecom Italia S.p.A.), also known as the TIM Group in English, is an Italian telecommunications company with headquarters in Rome, Milan, and Naples, (with the Telecom Italia Tower) which provides fixed ...
) is investing 12 billion € in the period of 2016-2018, with the aim of reaching 84% of the homes with broadband connection (100 Mbit/s) before the end of 2018. Despite this, there's a debate going because the company is still investing on copper and on the fiber-to-the-cabinet (
FTTC
Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber optic ...
) technology, instead of bringing fibre directly to the home everywhere. The FTTC and VDSL2 technologies can currently bring up to 100/20 Mbit/s connections to the final customer. TIM and Fastweb have plans to increase FTTC speeds with vectoring to up to 200/50 Mbit/s streams before the end of 2016.
The FTTH network is developing as well, with a standard 1000/100 Mbit/s connection (1000/200 Mbit/s with Vodafone ) at the same subscription price as FTTC .
Figures published by the
National Institute of Statistics showed in late-2011 that 58.8% of Italian families had a personal computer (up slightly from 57.6% in 2010);
[Cittadini e nuove tecnologie.]
''Istituto nazionale di statistica.'' Web. 01 Dec. 2012. 54.5% had access to the internet (up from 52.4%);
and 45.8% had broadband access (up from 43.4%).
Over one-quarter (26.3%, down slightly from 26.4% in 2010) of Italian internet users aged fourteen years and older made an online purchase during 2011.
Internet regulation
![Firenze-Internet-cafe-0836](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Firenze-Internet-cafe-0836.jpg)
An
anti-terrorism law amended in 2005, after the terrorists attacks in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
and
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
,
by then-
Minister of the Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
Giuseppe Pisanu
Giuseppe "Beppe" Pisanu (born 2 January 1937 in Ittiri, province of Sassari) is an Italian politician, longtime member of the Chamber of Deputies for the Christian Democracy (1972–1992) and then for Forza Italia (1994–2006).
Biography
Pi ...
, restricted the opening of new
Wi-Fi Hotspot
A hotspot is a physical location where people can obtain Internet access, typically using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local-area network (WLAN) using a router connected to an Internet service provider.
Public hotspots may be created b ...
s,
subjecting interested entities to first apply for permission to open at the
Police Headquarters
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
of jurisdiction
and that such hotspot's customers were subjected to identification, by presenting an
identity document.
This inhibited the opening of hotspots across Italy,
with a number of hotspots 5 times lower than France and the conspicuous absence of
Municipal wireless network
A municipal wireless network is a citywide wireless network. This usually works by providing municipal broadband via Wi-Fi to large parts or all of a municipal area by deploying a wireless mesh network. The typical deployment design uses hundred ...
s.
Considering the above-mentioned law was too strict, a
proposed law was proposed to facilitate the opening and access of Wi-Fi Hotspots,
although it was not clear how it should have been possible.
Only at the end of 2010, a bipartisan bill allowed for the repeal of article 7 of the Pisanu law. The abrogation was finally made by the
Monti Cabinet
The Monti government was the sixty-first government of Italy and was announced on 16 November 2011. This Government of Experts, Experts' cabinet was composed of independents, three of whom were women and was formed as an interim government. The ...
, which has not entered the renewal extension in the decree of 2011, so that the provision is no longer in force since January 1, 2012.
Currently internet filtering in Italy is applied on web-sites which display child pornography
and on some P2P web-sites (including the most famous
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute ma ...
). A pervasive filtering is applied to those gambling websites that don't have a local license to operate in Italy.
Copyright and content regulation
In October 2020, the vice secretary of the
Conte II Cabinet Andrea Martella proposed to make mandatory for
over-the-top media service the payment of copyright royalties in favour of the content producers,
and also to introduce a
web tax to provide public schools and for individual citizens with discounted subscriptions of Italian online and paper journals. He also suggested to speed up the conversion decrees of the
EU copyright directive
The copyright law of the European Union is the copyright law applicable within the European Union. Copyright law is largely harmonized in the Union, although country to country differences exist. The body of law was implemented in the EU through ...
, to extend the censoring powers of the Italian public authority
Agcom in order to contrast
online piracy
Online piracy or software piracy is the practice of downloading and distributing copyrighted works digitally without permission, such as music or software. The principle behind piracy has predated the creation of the Internet, but its online popul ...
and
fake news
Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...
,
and to establish a
minimum wage for unstable journalists of the Italian newspapers.
See also
*
Telecommunications in Italy
Telephones - main lines in use:
19.52 million (2019)
Telephones - mobile cellular:
79.48 million (2019)
Telephone system:
well-developed, fully automated telephone and data services
''domestic:''
high-capacity cable and microwave radio relay tr ...
*
Censorship in Italy
References
External links
Italy profile on
OpenNet Initiative
The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigato ...
website.
«Non è un paese per Internet. In cinque anni dieci leggi contro la Rete» (in Italian) article from the newspaper ''
Il Fatto Quotidiano
''il Fatto Quotidiano'' (English: "The Daily Fact") is an Italian daily newspaper owned by ''Editoriale Il Fatto SpA'' published in Rome, Italy. It was founded on 23 September 2009 and was edited by Antonio Padellaro until 2015, when Marco Trav ...
''.
Internet access and use in the EU27 in 2008 Eurostat news release.
The Networked Readiness Index 2008–2009 rankings(from th
,
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
.
{{Italy topics