TIM (Telecom Italia) has launched its no frills service Kena Mobile with a website offering a range of low-cost plans starting at EUR 3.99 a month. Consumers can choose between a voice-only bundle of 1,000 minutes or a bundle of 4GB of 3G data for EUR 3.99 each rising to EUR 9.99 for the Kena Digital plan with 600 minutes of voice calls, 6GB of data and 100 SMS. The offers come in advance of the official launch of the full MVNO this summer before France’s Iliad enters the Italian market as the country's fourth mobile network operator. The aim is to counter Iliad’s aggressive cost cutting and avoid a mass migration to the new operator with an offer that doesn’t affect TIM’s own premium 4G+ services.
Iliad’s founder Xavier Niel recently revealed that the company finally launch its Italian mobile service under the Free brand between November and January and will initially aim for a market share of between 10 and 15 percent. In an interview he claimed that Italians "already pay 10 percent more than the French," and that Iliad wouldn't "mistreat" Italian consumers with "little tricks" and would instead "create an operator that is loved by the population."
