Italy’s CDN Coup: Telecoms Hijacking the Open Internet

In a controversial move that could reverberate across Europe, Italy’s communications regulator AGCOM has decided to bring Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) under the scope of the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC). By classifying CDNs as Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs), AGCOM is effectively applying telecom-style rules — including mandatory registration and regulatory oversight — to a critical layer of the internet.

This isn’t just a technical tweak. It’s a fundamental shift in how internet infrastructure is treated, and it threatens to undermine the openness, resilience, and global interoperability of the internet as we know it.

Telecom Lobbying Behind the Scenes

The move appears closely aligned with Telecom Italia’s interests. TIM CEO Pietro Labriola was quick to praise the decision, calling it “a turning point” for the telecom sector and a step toward “a level playing field.” But it’s hard to ignore the timing — TIM had been lobbying for this very outcome just months earlier.

Under the new rules, any entity that owns or operates a CDN in Italy — whether a global provider like Cloudflare, Akamai or AWS or a local content platform running its own caching infrastructure — will be required to obtain a general authorization and submit to AGCOM’s oversight. This, AGCOM claims, brings “symmetry” to digital regulation. In reality, it imposes heavy-handed controls on infrastructure that has long operated efficiently, securely, and competitively in a lightly regulated environment.

The Opposition Was Loud — and Ignored

This decision wasn’t made in a vacuum. During the public consultation phase, a wide range of stakeholders — from industry groups to civil society and technical experts — warned AGCOM against such a move. Their message was clear: regulating CDNs like telecom networks would create legal uncertainty, hinder performance, and fragment Europe’s digital ecosystem.

AGCOM pushed ahead anyway, citing legal and technical justifications that stretch the definitions in the EECC and lean on precedent from the DAZN case — where the regulator treated the company’s private CDN as a public network because it included “active network elements” and fiber transmission.

Why It Matters — And Why It’s a Mistake
At first glance, this may seem like a narrow regulatory clarification. But beneath the surface, AGCOM’s decision sets a dangerous precedent.

1. A Backdoor for “Fair Share” Fees
Despite AGCOM’s claims to the contrary, reclassifying CDNs as ECNs inches Europe closer to the controversial “fair share” proposal — the idea that big tech companies should pay telecoms for using their networks. By framing CDN infrastructure as public networks, the groundwork is laid for regulators to impose usage-based charges, turning voluntary interconnection into a regulated cost center.

2. Undermining Internet Architecture
CDNs are not telecom networks. They’re content-layer infrastructure — crucial for speeding up access to web services, securing traffic, and ensuring resilience during spikes in demand. Regulating them like telcos breaks the open architecture of the internet, replacing flexibility and permissionless innovation with licenses and red tape.

3. Innovation Punished, Incumbents Rewarded
This move could impose a significant burden on smaller companies and startups. Many content providers run their own CDNs or rely on third-party services to deliver high-performance content. Applying telecom-style rules could deter them from investing, hamper performance, and drive up costs — all while reinforcing the market power of large incumbents who can afford the compliance.

4. Market Distortion
AGCOM’s decision blurs the line between transport and content layers. Telecom operators that offer CDN-like services could gain an unfair edge over independent CDN providers, raising serious concerns about competition and conflicts of interest. Instead of fostering innovation, this risks entrenching vertically integrated telcos and reducing user choice.

Real-World Consequences
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If global CDN providers like Akamai, Cloudflare, or Fastly decide that Italy has become too burdensome or hostile an environment in which to operate — due to increased regulatory costs, data localization demands, or forced revenue-sharing with telecom operators — the impact will be immediate and widespread. These content delivery networks form the invisible backbone of the internet, ensuring that websites load quickly, remain secure, and stay online during high traffic. Their absence won’t just inconvenience tech companies — it will affect ordinary Italians in their daily lives.

Critical public services —including Italy’s National Institute for Social Security (INPS), Agenzia delle Entrate (the revenue agency), and the Ministry of Health, to name a few—rely on CDN infrastructure to handle the surge of digital traffic during tax season, health emergencies, or pension disbursements. Without that infrastructure, websites may load more slowly, crash under pressure, or become more vulnerable to cyberattacks — leaving citizens stranded when they most need access to essential services.

This isn’t just about efficiency — it’s about national resilience. Slower, less reliable digital infrastructure risks degrading public trust in government, hampering Italy’s digital transformation goals, and exacerbating the digital divide between urban and rural areas.
The only real winners here are telecom operators, pushing for laws that let them charge the very companies that keep the internet fast, secure, and functional. If they succeed, global CDN providers may scale back or exit the Italian market, and telcos will likely hike consumer prices under the pretense of "infrastructure investment." In reality, Italians would pay more for a slower, less secure internet.

By prioritizing their own content delivery networks, telcos are tilting the playing field in their favor — but their CDNs simply aren’t built to deliver the same quality. Unlike global providers like Cloudflare, Akamai, or Fastly — which operate expansive, highly distributed networks designed for speed, redundancy, and resilience — telco-run CDNs often lack the geographic scale, technical sophistication, and cybersecurity capabilities to manage peak demand or mitigate attacks.

The consequences are not hypothetical. In June 2021, a major outage at Fastly — one of the world’s leading CDN providers — briefly took down or disrupted access to thousands of websites globally, including major Italian services such as La Repubblica, Corriere della Sera, and various e-commerce and government portals, highlighting just how dependent modern digital infrastructure is on these networks. Now imagine that level of disruption becoming routine because the country has driven out the providers best equipped to prevent it. Services like INPS or the Agenzia delle Entrate could become unreliable during critical periods, such as tax deadlines or pension disbursements, affecting millions of citizens.
This isn’t just a matter of commercial competition. It’s a fundamental threat to Italy’s digital resilience. Favoring telcos' inferior infrastructure is digital protectionism — shielding incumbents from competition while degrading the experience, security, and rights of everyone else.

This is not a future anyone should want. Undermining the open, efficient, and secure functioning of the internet in Italy risks isolating the country digitally and economically — while lining the pockets of a few national incumbents at the expense of everyone else.

What’s Next

AGCOM has now passed its decision to Italy’s Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy (MIMIT) for implementation. Under Italian law, the regulation can be challenged in court within 60 days — and given what’s at stake, legal action seems not only likely but necessary.

Europe is at a crossroads. It can either defend a decentralized, open, and resilient internet that fosters innovation and economic growth — or it can cave to pressure from powerful telecom operators and embrace a centralized, rent-seeking model that locks users into slower, more expensive, and less secure digital infrastructure. AGCOM’s decision may be cloaked in regulatory language, but its consequences are anything but abstract: they are political, economic, and profoundly structural.

This is not just Italy’s problem. If left unchallenged, it risks becoming a dangerous blueprint for the rest of Europe — one that fractures the continent’s digital single market, weakens its cybersecurity posture, and erodes the fundamental principles that have allowed the internet to thrive.

Italian policymakers need to understand the gravity of this moment. If they allow this regulation to stand, they won’t just be making a technical decision — they will be endorsing a future in which Italy is digitally isolated, its citizens pay more for less, and its economy loses out on global competitiveness.
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Time is running out — and silence now means surrender. Telecom giants are pushing to turn Italy into a laboratory for their rent-seeking agenda, using regulatory capture to undermine the open internet and crush competition. This isn’t about fairness or investment — it’s a calculated move to rewrite the rules in their favor, locking in profits while degrading the digital experience for everyone else. If lawmakers, regulators, and civil society don’t act now, Italy will set the precedent for a walled-off, telco-dominated internet that spreads across Europe like a virus. If we let this stand, we’re not just surrendering the internet — we’re auctioning it off.