The European Perspective of Telecommunications as a Critical Infrastructure

This paper attempts to analyze the degree to which the telecommunications sector is regarded as a critical infrastructure at the European level. Taking into account a new categorization of telecommunications applications and infrastructure perspectives, a new matrix-based classification method is proposed to clarify the protection approaches of policy makers and telecommunications asset owners and operators. The so-called “criticality matrix” approach applied to the Italian environment demonstrates the different perspectives held by policy makers and telecommunications asset owners and operators, and shows how all the stakeholders may engage a common base to define efficient and effective strategies that can enhance the security and resilience of critical infrastructure assets.