TIM (Telecom Italia) is preparing to launch a low-cost MVNO brand to counter the imminent entry into the Italian mobile market of France’s Iliad, according to unnamed sources cited by La Repubblica. Iliad is set to launch its Italian operation next summer and TIM is looking to take advance action to avoid a mass migration of customers to the French company, said the sources. To do so, the former incumbent will launch a totally independent operator with its own retail channels at the start of next year via the Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA) Noverca acquired from Acotel at the end of last month.
The aim is to complement TIM’s mobile offer with a series of basic bundles, said the sources, thus mitigating the effect of the entry of Iliad, which has significantly undercut incumbents in its home market in recent years. The French group launched a fourth mobile network operator under the brand Free in its domestic market back in 2012 and will debut in Italy next year after Wind and 3 Italia agreed to agreed to divest frequencies and infrastructure assets to secure regulatory approval for their merger.
Telecom Italia Group CEO Flavio Cattaneo recently announced that he wasn’t worried about Iliad's forthcoming entry, saying Italy is a very different market to France and that the French operator had no longer had the element of surprise. "Iliad cannot take advantage of the surprise effect and from our side there will be counter measures that are adequate and coherent with our positioning in the market," said Cattaneo in September.
