Telecom Italia is considering cutting up to 15,000 jobs, equivalent to nearly 30 percent of its workforce, due to increased competition arising from the fibre-optic broadband rollout plans of Italian utility giant Enel, according to unnamed sources cited by Bloomberg. Enel recently confirmed plans to invest a total of EUR 2.5 billion to help bring high-speed broadband to around 7.5 million homes in 224 Italian cities. The sources said Telecom Italia may lose around 5 million wholesale customers as a result, most of them from Vodafone Italia and Wind, with Telecom Italia increasingly frustrated by a plan it considers to be unfair competition. Vodafone Italia and Wind are expected to reach a strategic and commercial partnership with Enel to develop the broadband network across Italy.
Enel’s largest investor is Italy’s economy ministry with a stake of around 24 percent, meaning that the government is a key partner in Enel’s newly-created Enel Open Fiber venture, which Telecom Italia has also been invited to join. Further details of Enel’s plan as well as the first of the tenders to build a national high-speed broadband network are scheduled to be announced on 07 April.French media company Vivendi, which is Telecom Italia's top investor with a 24.9 percent stake, responded to the reports about potential job losses by stressing that its investment in the Italian operator is not intended to cut jobs. "Vivendi is in Italy to develop and invest in the long term and not to cut jobs," a spokesman for the company told Reuters.
