Insight: Italy's slow Internet set for reboot

IMM Hydraulics, a small exporter of hoses for industries such as agriculture and mining, is the kind of firm that should be at the center of Italy's efforts to rekindle its stagnant economy. Instead, the company, located in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, is wrestling with a basic impediment to profitability: a woefully slow broadband connection. With just 2 megabits (MB) per second, IMM Hydraulics' broadband connection lags behind the 5 MB typical in Italian cities, which in turn is well behind an average of 12 MB in France and 16 MB in Germany. "It takes us days to process an order whereas it could take half an hour," said finance director Marcello Di Campli. “Broadband is one of our biggest problems, probably just after our access to credit.”

Italians pay among the highest prices in Europe for broadband speeds on a par with Estonia or Cyprus. As a result, only half the population uses the Internet at least once a week and Italian firms generate 5.4 percent of sales on-line compared to 13.9 percent elsewhere in Europe.