Iliad – the French telephone company – announced this morning his debut also in Italy in the fixed telephony.
Already present on the Italian market since May 2018 in the mobile sector with 8,5 million users, Iliad has announced an offer of 23,99 euros per month (after 39,99 euros of installation) for new users and 15,99 euros for those who already have a mobile contract.
“We had already made a revolution in 2018 by raising the bar of the average offer at the time which was 8 GB by multiplying it up to 7 times for the mobile network” CEO Benedetto Levi said in presenting the new offer. “Now we are making a new revolution with the fixed network”.
The offer better than Iliad - known in France as Free - for the fixed network is intended for 6 million users who will be able to use up to 5 Gbits per second for downloads and 700 Mbits per second for uploads, while for another 1,4 million users the offer will be 1 Gbits per second for downloads and 300 Mbits for uploads. Iliad will use the Open Fiber network in FTTH fiber for its debut.
The CEO underlined what has always been the flagship for Iliad. “We will maintain the same bill transparency that has distinguished us for mobile telephony, with zero remodulations, zero hidden costs, zero nasty surprises: the cost we propose will be forever” said Levi.
Will there be a merger for Iliad with Vodafone?
But attention for Iliad on the markets it is above all for his own governance and for the possibility of a merger with another telephone company. In particular, there is talk of a merger with Vodafone after talks between the advisors of the two companies have begun – according to reports from the Reuters agency.
ubs for Vodafone e Lazard for Iliad they are studying strategic plans in Italy and if an agreement were reached, a group would be created telecommunications giant with a mobile market penetration of around 36% and combined revenues of almost €6 billion.
Last January 13 the same Levi, had declared that the French company was also open to a purchase or a merger with a rival operator. “If one of the main operators, in whole or in part, becomes available on the market, we will evaluate all the options without any preconceptions, also in terms of Mergers & Acquisitions”, he declared.
Instead last November the head of Vodafone, Nick Read, had affirmed that the consolidation was necessary in Europe, in particular in Italy, Spain and Portugal, where “all the players are suffering”.
According to other market indications, Iliad could instead consider an alliance with Fibercop, the network infrastructure company born last year, whose capital is now in the hands of TIM for 58%, of the Kkr fund (which sees the presence in the Board by Xiavier Niel, majority shareholder of Iliad) for 37,5% and Fastweb for 4,5%. Just last May Iliad signed a co-investment agreement with Fibercop for the FTTH network.
It will be necessary to see – if the merger takes place – what the Antitrust could say about it, which in the past had played a decisive role, even if Fastweb is also on the telephony board, which in fact now represents the fifth operator in the field.
With regard to Iliad's announcement of its entry into the fixed market in Italy on the Open Fiber network, the Marketing and Commercial Director of Open Fiber Simone Bonannini commented: "We are proud that a major international operator such as Iliad has chosen our network for entry into the fixed connectivity market in Italy. This is the confirmation of the validity of the wholesale only model that Open Fiber has chosen since its foundation. A model that favors competition by guaranteeing, on the one hand, end users a choice based on their needs and, on the other, making available to operators, on equal terms, a cutting-edge infrastructure on which to develop their own services".
Updated at 14:37pm on Tuesday, January 25, 2022
