Fastweb (Swisscom) and Wind Tre (Hutchison) have signed a 5G network sharing agreement including spectrum, radios and backhaul in Italy. The deal will allow both firms to reach 90 percent of the population by about 2026, while also lowering capital investment costs and speeding market entry, as attacker Iliad enters the Italian mobile market.
Also, the deal gives Fastweb, a fixed network services supplier, a mobility capability, while Wind Tre gets to sell fixed network services (fiber-to-home and fiber-to-curb) to businesses and consumers.
The shared network will be managed by Wind Tre and use Fastweb’s fixed network backhaul facilities to connect small cells and towers across Italy.
The big trade-off with wholesale network sharing is that the partners are unable to differentiate on coverage or speed dimensions, the two major potential differentiators for a mobile network. On the other hand, this deal also allows each partner to create a converged services business with mobile and fixed network services, at a fraction of the cost and time to market of each firm moving alone.
Fastweb also becomes a nationwide mobile provider while Wind Tre immediately becomes a supplier of faster fixed network internet access services. Wind Tre has been under pressure recently, losing accounts as Iliad has entered the market.
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