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MILAN, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Iliad is in touch with
the competition authorities over the planned merger of the
mobile towers of Telecom Italia (TIM) and Vodafone
, the Italian country head of the French telecom and
media group said on Thursday.
TIM and Vodafone agreed in July to fold their Italian mobile
tower assets into TIM unit INWIT to cut debt and free
up cash for the roll-out of next generation 5G networks.
"A partnership between operators like INWIT and Vodafone
could put competition at risk... we are ready to defend
ourselves if competition was at risk," Benedetto Levi said.
Levi said Iliad would be launching a 5G offer in Italy
before the end of 2020.
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina, writing by Stephen Jewkes)
