14 years of AGCOM: what has changed in the Italian TLC since 1998 to now

This paper does not try an analytical overview of the activity inthe last 14 years of the two Councils of the ItalianCommunications Authority (AGCOM) that have been in charge thusfar. It attempts to stimulate readers to form a their own criticaljudgment instead. To this end, we examine some of the mostsignificant markets in the Electronic Communication sector,discussing their development in Italy and by comparing it with theones of other EU member states. It results that this process hasbeen influenced from time to time by the structural differencesbetween countries and by the effect of national policies and,also, by the different role played by the regulation. Sometimes itappears clearly that the lack of economic politics guidelines hashindered the regulator's ability to take a proper forward lookingapproach. The markets covered are Broadband, Mobile and FixedTelephony; while the countries chosen as a reference are: Belgium,France, Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Poland, Spain and Sweden.