Six euros a month (5,99 to be precise) with unlimited calls and text messages in Italy and Europe, 30 GB of Internet (with 4G+ connection, the fastest currently, where available), without any additional costs, any restrictions (you can always withdraw, free of charge) and with free telephone calls also to 65 countries outside Europe. “And above all, perhaps the most important thing – he explains from the stage of Superstudio Più in via Tortona, in Milan, the young CEO of Iliad Italia Benedetto Levi -, the price is frozen forever. There won't be the hateful distinction that other companies make between new and old customers. The cost will not change over time and the bills will be monthly, i.e. twelve a year”.
Iliad bursts into the Italian market with a shock offer, and does so right away: it is already possible today, Tuesday 29 May, to purchase the Sims of the French operator at the points of sale. To locate them, you need to register on the Iliad site or, shortly, also through the Simboxes that Iliad will spread throughout the territory. A sort of ATM where you can register: all you need is a payment card, an email address and an identity document and let yourself be guided through the various stages displayed on the screen.
“Customers in Italy are unhappy – continued Levi, a 29-year-old from Turin and already a startupper -: the prices are high and there is no clarity in the bills. We have such little faith in operators and we are afraid of exceeding, for example, the Internet Giga limits per month, that we are last in Europe for Internet use on smartphones. Only just over 2 GB consumed per month, against 15 in Finland”. But there is an even more eloquent figure in the presentation-show in Milan: the additional costs, misleading advertising and other "tricks" used by the companies so far present on the market (and accused, also by Levi, of being a cartel), have yielded to the same companies 4 billion euros in 2017.
“It's money taken from our pockets – harangued the managing director of Iliad Italia -. And this cost them, last year alone, 120.000 complaints to Agcom. It's a very high number: 120.000 customers who took the trouble to write to the Authority to report irregularities, a figure that is not seen in any other sector”. Agcom for its part intervenes often and willingly: already more than 18 million euros in fines imposed in 2018, in addition to the obligation for operators to return to monthly billing. Obligation fulfilled only a month ago, however at the same time as a non-random increase in prices (practically the thirteenth month that came out with 28-day billing, in some cases it is recovered by spreading it over each month).
All this, according to what was announced by Iliad, will no longer happen: in addition to the ultra-competitive price (the other companies, by proportioning the various offers, cost from 2 to 5 times more), there is the certainty of not paying for updates to the phone plan, voice mail, unsolicited paid services (can be deactivated immediately), and other various options such as the "call me back" (which in some cases costs 1,5 euros per use!) and credit check telephone. And there is also the certainty of having a fast and generous Internet offer: 30 GB per month, apart from the price, currently nobody offers them (Tre Wind stops at 20).
There is only one limit to the offer, which demonstrates how impetuous and ambitious Iliad's landing in Italy is: "This offer of 5,99 euros per month - says Benedetto Levi with a smile - however, will not be valid for everyone, but" only” for the first million customers. After that, we don't know what will happen." One million customers is the goal of the French company: reachable, with these rates. But how will other operators respond?
