Digitization: 74% of Italians Are Willing to Spend More for a Sustainable Connection

For 67% of Italian consumers, the CO2 footprint released by their connection is a major factor; a percentage that rises to 79.8% in 18-24 year olds. And 74% would even be willing to pay more for a sustainable broadband connection service.

As many as 13% would even accept a cost difference of more than 20%. The data emerges from “Cisco Broadband Survey,” a research conducted in 12 EMEA countries to focus on new network-related needs according to different user expectations.

Read more about the Cisco Broadband Survey and find the most important financial news of the day with the Born2Invest mobile app.

More secure connections

The demand for speed and reliability is accompanied by a growing awareness of the environmental impact of digital. And there is a growing assertion of the need to feel more secure in both cloud infrastructure and the Internet of Things, smart cars, and home appliances. From the data emerging from Cisco’s research, 82 percent of Italians consider broadband to be a critical infrastructure for the country. In the era of smart working and hybrid work, the use of the home network for professional and not just personal reasons has generated new risks.

Despite the fact that most users use a home connection to access banking services or log into their work systems, still half of Italians (50 percent) and half of Europeans (51 percent) use only a password to protect their home network and everything connected to it. And only 19% of Italians, (still less than the European average which is 24%) have activated the firewall on their router.

While in Europe the demand for more security exceeds the demand for more speed by one point (37% vs. 36%), in Italy the desire for a faster network is shared by 38% of respondents, and the need for a more secure network stops at 35%.

An increasingly digital life

According to the Cisco study, consumers are moving toward an increasingly rich and “smart” digital life. 52 percent of Italians have already connected home entertainment systems to the network, in line with the rest of European consumers; followed by devices related to health and wellness (39 percent, more than the European average, which is 33 percent), home lighting (24.3 percent), heating or air conditioning systems (23.5 percent), household appliances (22 percent), tools to regulate energy consumption (21 percent), private cars (19 percent) and, at 10 percent, water.

Looking ahead to the next five years, Cisco estimates 57.8 percent of home appliances, 61.5 percent of energy management tools, 59.8 percent of lighting, and nearly 40 percent of water utilities.

This means that the network will have to respond to increasing demands while also reckoning with the rising cost of living. In this regard, 66 percent of Italians said that the rising cost of living has affected their spending on digital services in general.

In detail, 20% of respondents remarked that they recently switched to a cheaper broadband offering, and 12% canceled streaming services they previously used. In Europe, the weight of the price crisis is equally felt, but in a somewhat different way: rather than switching to cheaper offerings (18%) people chose to cut back on streaming services (15%).

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(Featured image by Lucent_Designs_dinoson20 via Pixabay)

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First published in StartupItalia, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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