by Alberto Minnella
Last year I believed, naively, that Sicily it’s ready for digital. I had to change my daughter’s pediatrician in Catania. “It’s all done online,” they told me, with the confidence of someone who’s never tried it. I go to the ASP portal, click “change doctor”, and the site replies: “Server error”. Trying again: page not available. After three tries, the SPID stalled like an old Fiat going uphill. I called the toll-free number: “Come alone, sir, it’s easier.” So, after days of trying, at dawn I found myself in front of the office, in hand, as in the post-war period. The digital transition in Sicily is going very well: wasting your time both online and at the counter.
However, reading the press release, everything seems to have been resolved. Open Fiber has completed Ultra Wide Band Package for 300 cities, installing 4,500 kilometers of optical fiber, connecting 380 thousand homes and 2,300 public offices, with an investment of 239 million euros (Open Fiber, 7 July 2025). This region proclaims itself “the first great South” to complete the plan (Infratel Italia). On paper – and in Sicily everything remains on paper – we should be a model of modernity. It’s a shame that the fiber runs underground, but the mule is still above.
According to the latest data, 85.5% of Sicilian municipalities still voted i paper documents to digital processes, and only 52.9% offer fully online services (Il Sicilia, April 2024). This is a small revolution made with the fountain pen. These offices boast of “dematerialization”, but still ask for revenue stamps. Mayor inauguratesdigital points” and then they sign the minutes with a pen. The school is talking about it coding and artificial intelligence, but the circulars are still printed and stapled. It is the future that advances, but with headed paper.
In inland countries, fiber ends before asphalt. In Nebrody or in the interior of Nisse, a storm is enough to shut down everything. A businessman from Ragusa he says, to send large files, he still uses a USB stick: “It’s more reliable”. This is the Silicon Valley of the South, with postmen instead of clouds. But the problem is not technical, but cultural. Sicilians have always confused modernity with scenography. You change the facade, not the engine. We digitize paper, not humans. It’s like painting a donkey blue and calling it a Tesla.
There is talk of artificial intelligence, but administrative intelligence is still in the testing phase. Digital is not a button to be pushed: it is a way of thinking. And until the head changes, the fiber remains only a thread of hope stretching between two buildings. In some countries, the only network that works is the barber network, which knows everything and keeps everyone up to date.
A few months ago I tried the same procedure again, always online. This time the site worked and the email was ready to be sent. But red text appeared on the portal: “Service is temporarily suspended. Please go to the counter.” I went back there, like the year before. Same office, same forms, same messy queues. And while I wait, I understand that in Sicily, digitalization is not a process: it is a recurring promise, like summer or elections. Arrived on time, no changes and went by quickly.
