Reports from Italy are suggesting that Swisscom-owned ISP Fastweb would be interested in acquiring any mobile spectrum and infrastructure freed up as part of the proposed merger between Wind Telecomunicazioni and 3 Italia. Wind and 3 are looking to combine their businesses to create an enlarged competitor for Telecom Italia and Vodafone in the country’s cellular market, but the combined entity may be forced to offload some of its assets in order to gain European Commission (EC) regulatory approval.
A report from Telecompaper says Wind and 3 could free up mobile towers and part of their spectrum allocations to open the way for Fastweb to enter Italy’s mobile market as a new network operator and thereby preserve the status quo of a four-player market. The ISP currently provides wireless services under an MVNO agreement with 3 Italia and had attracted 971,000 mobile subscribers by the end of 2015, according to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database.