The Embassy of Italy is indeed very pleased to send this message to the Korea IT Times on the occasion of the 2007 Italian National Day on June 2nd, 1946. This is a day particularly important for our Embassy in Seoul, being a day of celebration of the excellent relationship between Italy and Korea.
In this message I'm pleased to enhance the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) status of R&D and its industrial scenario in Italy and the relevant links existing between the two Countries.
ICT represents the forefront of a technological revolution that day by day is changing and improving our Society and Italy is among top Countries in the use of internet broadband communications and diffusion of mobile phones.
Italian ICT related activities have a 2006 market of 63.844 billion Euros (US$86.229 billion) and the 85,600 ICT Italian companies are around 1% of the total Companies in our country.
The total manpower in the ICT field represents the 3.1% of total Italian manpower and it is shared as 74.7% in service activities, 21.1% in telecommunications and 25.3% in manufacturing activities.
The Italian national ICT strategy is to develop a better knowledge of scientific and technological (S&T) aspects, and to strengthen the technological and commercial level of the Italian productive and services system.
The Italian Government has addressed the S&T national policy in the 2003 to 2007 period through the assessment of new National Research Plans representing an updated strategy in order to strengthen scientific and technological research and to improve the competitiveness of most advanced industry.
ICT technologies represent one of the ten selected priorities and the Plans foresee three main strategic lines of action:
1. Reinforcement of the scientific base of the country, looking for excellence, merit, internationalization, economic growth and making the most of human capital;
2. Strengthening the technological level of the Italian productive system to maintain competitiveness, focusing on ten strategic industrial research programs involving also the participation of universities and research centers;
3. Support active participation in EU programs and in international agreements.
The 2006 Italian ICT market is represented by IT applications for about 31% of the total market and by TLC applications for about 69%. Specifically, the TLC market, mainly focused on mobile communication and broadband internet access, shows a mean growth of about 2.1%, whose higher fraction is given by the private consumer market at about 62% rather than by the business one at about 38%. Although about 77% of the total market belongs to service providers, the TLC appliances and equipment turnover market is very meaningful and one half of it is given by final user equipment (+5.1% mobile phones). No mobile cell phones are manufactured in Italy and Korean mobile communication equipment is largely appreciated in a relevant market of 44.9 million users of cell phones with 81.9 million of lines contracts.
The other remarkable element of the current TLC market in Italy is the growth of internet connections, driven by the increasing request of broadband services: 2.57 billion connections in 2006 with a growth of 7.5%. A great success has been recorded in 2006 by xDSL, 8.2 million connections in 2006, +26.5% and optical fiber 320 thousand connections in 2006, +8%.
Given that the two key features of the Italian TLC market are represented by mobile applications and broadband access, it is very likely that in the next years users will be more and more interested to mobile fast internet applications, where the two markets converge. In this context, WiMax and WiBro technology could be a very promising candidate for providing broadband wireless services even in rural areas, thus overcoming the Italian digital divide with very limited infrastructure investments.
A successful test of Korean- Samsung technology has been carried out during the last 2006 Torino Olympic Games, but the technology spread over the Italian Market is currently delayed by UMTS Providers, which would like to compete for the same market.
Among other wireless services, IP-TV technology is maybe one of the challenges still open, given that the operators still reveal some problems in its market penetration.
Despite of the different utilized standards -- Digital Multimedia Broadcast (DMB) in Korea and Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) in Italy we argue that the great experience and advancements of Korean IP-TV technology could find relevant opportunities by Italian video signals providers and operators.
The government cooperation between Italy and Korea in the ICT field is relevant and fruitful: a Memorandum of Understanding related to bilateral ICT cooperation has been signed last February 15, 2007 between the Korean Minister of Information and Communication Honorable Rho Jun-hyong at an official visit to Italy in October 2006 and the Italian Minister of Communications Honorable Paolo Gentiloni.
The total number of Italian Projects to the past EU-FP5 Program in the specific field of user-friendly information society was 1055, 321 of them with Italian coordination.
A similar figure is in the FP6 from 2002 to 2005, and foreseen in the ongoing FP7.
The scientific and technological government cooperation between Italy and Korea has a general frame in the 8th Protocol of Cooperation Agreement for the years 2007 to 2009 signed in Rome on December 1, 2006.
Some active and noteworthy Projects related to Italy-Korea R&D cooperation in the field of ICT, are:
"Design and implementation of a 2.5 Tbit/s Optical Time Division Multiplexing (OTDM) system" (SSSAScuola Superiore Sant'Anna, University of Pisa / Photonic Research Center, KIST-Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul)
Special Optical Fibers and Devices for Photonics Applications in Communications and Sensing, Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova / Institute of Physics and Applied Physics, Yonsei University, Seoul
Mechanism of reaction between transparent dielectric and Ag electrode in plasma display panel using microwave heating, Material Department, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia / Division Of Research Inha University, Incheon
Design, Realization and Characterization of Raman and Brillouin based distributed Fiber Optic Temperature Sensors, SSSAScuola Superiore Sant'Anna University of Pisa / School of EECS, SNU-Seoul National University
INFINITY: INteroperable wi-FI/wimax ConNecivITY, Electronic Engineering Department, University of Palermo / School of EECS , SNU-Seoul National University
Concerning the private-industrial scenario, the status of ICT cooperation between Italy and Korea is living a period of important interchange. Two main agreements have been recently established: the first one related to Samsung Electronics and Telecom Italia and the second one to Telit Communication and Bellware m2m.
The first agreement refers to the WiBro system, owned by Samsung Electronics, in order to spread it in the Italian Market through Telecom Italia, the main national telecommunication provider. The technology will allow video calls and video communications and data transfers with a speed of 20-30 Mbit/sec through wireless mobile devices.
The second agreement concerns the acquisition of the Korean Bellware m2m Co. Ltd. by the Italian Telit Communication S.pA., which has been worldwide one of the first companies having launched products containing GSM/GPRS and GPS technologies in a reduced space. Early last 2006 Telit promoted the worldwide smallest GSM/GPRS unit, quad-band type.
Bellware m2m Co. Ltd. Is the world leader in the manufacturing of equipment based on CDMA technology and devoted to machine to machine (M2M) communication, such as mobile phones with TV systems, cars with satellites, or airplanes with control towers. The agreement will enhance the excellence of the two companies and will certainly generate a new subject in the M2M market, able to meet now the demand of the CDMA and GSM systems, and, in the near future, to catch the opportunities of the new market of WCDMA/UMTS technologies.
The Italian Embassy in Seoul considers ICT technology as a priority in the S&T cooperation between Italy and Korea and as it refers to this year's events, a bilateral conference is going to be organized early this autumn in Seoul on the topic of Wireless Communication. Distinguished scientists from Seoul National University, the University of Palermo and University of Rome - Tor Vergata will attend the Conference as lecturers.
