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By Elvira Pollina
MILAN, Jan 30 (Reuters) - French telecom and media group
Iliad has raised its concerns over the planned merger
of the mobile towers of Telecom Italia (TIM) and
Vodafone with the competition authorities, the group's
Italian country head said on Thursday.
Iliad rivals TIM and Vodafone agreed in July to fold their
Italian mobile tower assets into TIM tower unit INWIT
to cut debt and free up cash for the roll-out of next generation
5G networks, keeping joint control of the new entity.
"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.
The 10 billion euro tie-up is under review by European
antitrust authority.
Iliad entered the Italian market in 2018 with a low-cost
mobile offer, putting pressure on the country’s biggest phone
carriers Telecom Italia, Vodafone and CK
Hutchison's Wind Tre, each controlling around a third
of the Italian mobile market.
The French group is the only operator not to have clinched
a network-sharing agreement for 5G in Italy and appealed against
a 5G agreement between Italian phone carriers Fastweb and Wind
Tre.
"Generally speaking, we are not against network sharing
agreements per se, but these partnerships should not create
distortions in the market", Levi said.
He added the group aims to launch its own 5G offer in Italy
by the end of the year.
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and
Alexander Smith)
