(Sharecast News) - Vodafone and Telecom Italia have offered to share infrastructure with rivals to assuage regulators' concerns about their plan to form Italy's biggest mobile tower company, Reuters reported.
The telecoms companies said they would make available about 630 sites in towns with more than 35,000 people to let rivals provide current and future mobile and landline services for up to nine years, an internal paper seen by Reuters said.
Under a plan announced in July 2019, Vodafone would transfer its Italian mobile masts to INWIT, Telekom Italia's 60%-owned subsidiary. The deal would allow the companies to cut debt and share costs without attempting a merger that would fall foul of EU regulators' tough line on maintaining competition.
Analysts have calculated Vodafone could release up to €16bn (?13.3bn) of cash by merging its European towers into INWIT. The number of sites made available to rivals would gradually drop to less than 400 in the fifth year of the proposed plan, Reuters said.
Vodafone (VOD)2 May 2024 07:03
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