and international calls while increasing the cost of local calls, a move Internet users fear will sharply increase the cost of surfing the Net. The new tariffs will increase phone bills for the average family by between 4 percent and 6 percent. And although the subscriptions to Internet services are some of the cheapest in the world, the phone bills end up making it one of the most expensive on the whole. Because of these high prices, we have rated the phone structure factor a 4 (threatening). The overall technology infrastructure rates a 7.2.POLITICAL AND LEGALPOLITICALThe nation’s political system is considered one of the most unstable in the world, as coalition governments fail on a regular basis. There have been more than 50 administrations since the end of World War II. The political system was undermined further by a massive corruption scandal involving the awarding of government contracts to private firms in exchange for financial kickbacks that affected most of the major political parties and resulted in a complete reordering of the political landscape in the 1994 legislative elections. All of the mainstream political parties support privatization, although they have differing views on modalities and regulations. The Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, is a respected industrial economist with a centrist background. This has caused him to place great emphasis on developing a free market economy and as a result, the Internet is currently unregulated. There are also no direct governmental controls that keep people off of the Internet. The government has demonstrated their sincerity towards having the market handle the Internet by giving Telecom Italia more control of the phone lines. Italy has been recently accepted into the European Community proving that it has surpassed a preset level of stability. We have rated the political structure a 6 (neither favorable nor unfavorable). The rating is a combination of both Ita...
