Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA and the Bell Atlantic Corp’s international arm – which is already a partner with the Italian in the Omnitel Pronto Italia digital cellular consortium, are forming a joint venture to offer telecommunications services to business customers in Italy. The new Infostrada SpA will be owned 67% by Olivetti’s Olivetti Telemedia, 33% by Bell Atlantic. The new company will develop, manage and operate data transmission and value-added network services, and offer facilities management.It will become operational immediately, and will initially be capitalised at the equivalent of $29m. It will operate in all fields currently liberalised and expand its activities as liberalisation proceeds, and is looking for 10% of the market in the data communications areas in which it plans to compete. The data transmissions market is said to be worth some $875m a year.
