...PARIS (Standard & Poor's) Feb. 20, 2015--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today said its ratings and outlook on Italy's incumbent telecommunications operator Telecom Italia SpA (##+/Stable/B) remain unchanged after the company reported its 2014 preliminary results and unveiled its strategic plan for 2015-2017. The plan includes a sharp ramp-up in capital expenditures to accelerate Telecom Italia's deployment of next generation networks in Italy and Brazil. The announcement has no impact on our forecast key credit metrics for Telecom Italia, including Standard & Poor's adjusted ratios of debt to EBITDA and funds from operations to debt of about 3.5x and 20%, respectively. Moreover, we continue to anticipate moderately positive discretionary cash flows after dividends and unaltered "strong" liquidity. The company's somewhat stronger 2014 performance than we anticipated, combined with management's announcement that it is considering not resuming dividends on common shares this year, should...
