Mobile Networks in Italy

By Richard Greenbury
26 Dec 2020

There are 4 main players dominating the Italian mobile network operator market:

Telecom Italia (TIM)
Vodafone
Wind Tre
Iliad

We can say that the mobile telecommunications industry is highly dynamic with the marketing strategies and disruptive changes that are planned by these players. Regarding the events in 2016, when Wind Italy and 3 Italy (Tre) have agreed to unite, all consumer and business offers started to be sold under the new brand “Wind 3". As a consequence of this unification, the French operator Iliad, entered the Italian market in May 2018. That year, Iliad gained 15 percent of the new mobile users and accounted for 6.5 percent of the Italian SIM card subscribers.

The Race for 5G

While still playing a minor role in the Italian market, Iliad proved to be a strong competitor after winning access to 5G. However, with a 32.3% of market share, TIM made a deal with Vodafone to fold their Italian mobile tower assets into TIM’s INWIT unit -Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane that operates the wireless network infrastructure- for the next generation 5G networks. The two companies expect a huge kick off in 2020, as sources say. The last deal was done between Wind 3 and the fiber company Fastweb that agreed to combine their assets to accelerate the deployment of 5G.

MNO (Mobile Network Operators) Comparison

Regarding an analysis done by Opensignal with 5 metrics (4G availability, video experience, download speed experience, upload speed experience and latency experience) to evaluate the mobile network experience in 2020, only TIM and Vodafone became the winners in these criteria. However, each operator is planning to do some tempting innovations for the future market.

Here are offers for 5G packages (but check with the providers directly as the offers change frequently):

TIM

TIM is the strongest operator in the market regarding the infrastructure they have built over the years and maintains the position of the operator as the top quality. It is most suited for users that search for good connection anywhere in Italy.

TIM Advance 5G for 29,90 € / month:

50 GB (EU)

Unlimited SMS and minutes (Italy)

TIMMUSIC

TIM Advance 5G Unlimited for 99 € / month:

Unlimited GB (EU and Extra EU)

Unlimited SMS and minutes (Italy)

TIMMUSIC

250 minutes abroad (EU)

TIM Young without Limits for 14,99 € / month:

60 GB (Italy)

Unlimited GB for Social Media, chat and music (Italy)

Unlimited SMS and minutes (Italy)

TIMMUSIC

Vodafone

Besides sharing the best infrastructure of Italy with TIM, Vodafone is an international operator that can be used everywhere. For travelers that prefer to use the same service anywhere it is the most suited.

Infinito for 24,99 € / month

Unlimited GB and SMS (Italy)

Unlimited minutes (EU)

1000 minutes abroad (extra EU)

1 GB + 200 minutes abroad (extra EU)

Now Tv Cinema free for the first 6 months

Infinito Gold Edition for 29,99 € / month

Unlimited GB and SMS (Italy)

Unlimited minutes (EU)

1000 minutes abroad (extra EU)

2 GB + 300 minutes abroad (extra EU)

Now Tv Cinema free for the first 6 months

Infinito Black Edition for 39,99 € / month

Unlimited GB and SMS (Italy)

Unlimited minutes (EU)

1000 minutes abroad (EU)

5 GB + 500 minutes abroad (extra EU)

Now Tv Cinema free for the first 6 months

WindTre

WindTre is known for its value for service providers and quality of customer experience and invests in these areas. This operator is feasible for customers that look for extra care and all-inclusive packages.

Unlimited for 29,99 € / month

Unlimited GB (Italy)

Unlimited minutes (EU)

200 SMS (Italy and EU)

200 minutes abroad (extra EU)

XLARGE for 16,99 € / month

100 GB (Italy)

Unlimited minutes (EU)

200 SMS (Italy and EU)

50 minutes abroad (extra EU)

Iliad

Even though Iliad doesn’t have much dominance on the Italian market, its growing strategy is simple: keep it cheap and simple. The operator is feasible for economic users who are not looking for surplus advantages.

FLASH 70 for 9,99 € / month

70 GB (Italy)

Unlimited SMS and minutes (Italy and EU)

6 GB abroad (EU)

Unlimited minutes abroad (extra EU)

Author
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Richard

Richard is the founder of Cribmed. He was born and grew up in New Zealand. In his twenties, he traveled and backpacked extensively before finally settling down in Rome, Italy in 2011.