Which technologies reach your address? Your provider now has to tell you

A company asks for a link to its premises. The provider activates FTTC. At the same street number there is also fibre to the building, which nobody mentions. It used to be a missed opportunity, no more. Since February 2026 it is information that is owed, and since June withholding it is punishable.

The text: article 13, paragraph 1, letter b)

Decree-law no. 19 of 19 February 2026 (Official Gazette no. 41 of 19 February, in force from the 20th), converted with amendments by law no. 50 of 20 April 2026 (Official Gazette no. 91 of 20 April), is Italy’s recovery-plan decree. Article 13, “Urgent simplification measures on electronic communications”, amends the Electronic Communications Code (legislative decree 259/2003). Letter b) of paragraph 1 inserts the following into article 98-quaterdecies, paragraph 1 — “Information requirements applicable to contracts”:

“Internet access service providers are further obliged to give the consumer precise information on the various access network technologies available at the consumer’s service address, specifying their respective performance, on the basis of the current geographical mapping database of network deployments and connectivity service offerings provided for by article 22 of this code.”

Taken literally, the text does not say “other operators’ technologies too”. The anchor does: the article 22 database is the national geographical mapping, and paragraph 3 requires it to support “comparative assessments of the various offerings available from the various operators”. In practice, AGCOM’s Broadband Map.

When it must be given, and with what proof

The timing is in the opening line of paragraph 1: the information is given “before the consumer is bound by a contract or a corresponding offer”. Not at activation, not on the invoice.

Form matters too. The same paragraph requires it “on a durable medium” under article 45(1)(l) of the Consumer Code or, where that is not feasible, “in the form of an easily downloadable document”, and obliges the provider to flag the importance of downloading it “for documentation, future reference and identical reproduction purposes”.

Then comes paragraph 5, the real change of weight: the paragraph 1 information “becomes an integral part of the contract” and cannot be altered without the parties’ explicit agreement. The list of technologies at the street number is not sales material: it is a clause.

The AGCOM circular of 3 July 2026

The law does not say how to comply. The circular of 3 July 2026 does — from AGCOM’s consumer protection and networks and services directorates, “Implementing arrangements for article 13 of decree-law no. 19 of 19 February 2026”. Four points.

The dates. The information duty “became effective as from the entry into force of the decree”, therefore from 20 February 2026. The conversion law added transitional rules for the penalties alone — “Those penalties apply once two months have elapsed from the date of entry into force of this provision” — and the Authority concludes that they “become applicable as from 20 June 2026”. Anyone late has been late for months.

The list belongs to everyone. “According to the legislator’s intention”, the Authority writes, the list of solutions at the street number “must not be limited to those offered by the individual operator, but must include all available solutions, whichever operator offers them”, making transparent “in particular the availability of higher-performing technologies than the one covered by the specific offer”.

The 50,000-customer threshold. Operators “with a number of customers equal to or greater than 50,000” must obtain the coverage maps made available through the Broadband Map “by download, at least monthly”. Below 50,000, it is enough to give “prominence, on their own website and commercial channels, to a link redirecting to the AGCOM Broadband Map”. Real-time API querying is ruled out at this stage, not least because “the database is updated less often than monthly”; for larger operators a mere redirect is held not to be adequate.

Where it is shown. On the one-to-one “targeted channels” in pull mode under resolution 292/18/CONS, article 7, paragraph 4: websites, online contracting pages, customer care, points of contact. The data shown must be “equivalent to that on the Broadband Map” and “in a position clearly perceivable by the consumer within the offer selection journey”.

The penalties, with the references

The cross-reference is to article 1, paragraph 31, of law no. 249 of 31 July 1997, still written in lire: “from twenty million lire to five hundred million lire”, that is 10,329.14 to 258,228.45 euro. Read how it is built: it punishes “those who fail to comply with the Authority’s orders and formal notices” — non-compliance with the measure, not the irregularity itself. Paragraph 32 adds, for serious or repeated breaches, suspension of activity for up to six months or revocation of the licence.

If your company is the buyer

The provision speaks of the “consumer”. But paragraph 2 of article 98-quaterdecies extends the paragraph 1 information “also to end users who are microenterprises, small enterprises or not-for-profit organisations, unless they have expressly agreed to waive all or part of those provisions”. That waiver is a clause people sign without reading: look for it first. And a medium or large company falls outside: the same information must be demanded in writing in the request for proposal.

What to ask for: the technologies available at the street number with their performance, the database extraction date, which one the offer covers and which others are available. Two caveats. The map photographs the infrastructure, not which retail operator sells what at that address: coverage may exist while the commercial offer does not, the same gap that weighs on the street numbers of the public plan. And the rule requires informing, not activating the best technology: selling FTTC remains lawful, provided it is written that something else also reaches the address — and the gap between a street cabinet and fibre to the building is not readable in the commercial name.

For whoever manages the coverage maps

Above 50,000 customers the monthly download becomes a process with an owner, a date and an archive: the proof of compliance is the pair “document handed over / map extraction it comes from”. Below the threshold, the redirect belongs inside the selection journey, where the customer sees it. This is data discipline — versions, dates, traceability: the same rigour asked of a documented network, on the commercial front end.

The point.

For years the technology available at an address was something the seller knew and the customer did not. Since 20 February 2026 it must be declared, since 20 June withholding it is punishable and, through paragraph 5, it enters the contract. In the specifications we write or review the list of technologies at the street number, with extraction date and declared performance, is a contractual item like any other.

Choosing a link for a site, or reviewing a connectivity specification? Talk to an engineer: half an hour to find out what really reaches your address.