Telecoms: Italy

“UNICO” is the brand name chosen by Telecom Italia for its the fixed-mobile telephone, based on UMA technology, which functions as a multimedia cordless in the home, using the IP network, and as a GSM mobile phone outside.
Offered as an optional service at 15 euro a month on top of the ADSL access fee, “UNICO” permits calls from home to all fixed-line phones and TIM mobile phones without additional costs; outside the home, “UNICO” permits calls at 0 cost to two TIM mobile numbers and one fixed-line number. Billing will be kept separate for mobile and indoor use. The first handset offered by Telecom Italia, which will be on the market in July, will be the Samsung SGH P200.
Long announced by Telecom Italia one of its first converged fixed-mobile services, it will certainly stirs complaints from other OLOs and ISPs, because it is not replicable buying wholesale capacity from Telecom Italia. Moreover, no MVNO exist in Italy yet.
Actually, Wind is the only competing OLO owning both a fixed and a mobile network in Italy, but so far it has not announced any plan to deploy UMA technology.

Elitel today announced the availability of a converged fixed-mobile service targeted to its business customers.
Thanks to a dual-mode Wi-Fi/GSM handset supplied by Qtek, Elitel is offering the converged option to its business VoIP customers.
A similar converged offer targeted to business customers has been recently announced also by BT Albacom.
However, for both solutions the fixed and mobile bills will be kept separated, because none of the fixed line operators can act as mobile virtual network operator yet.

Elitel confirmed its ambition to become a full fledged virtual mobile network operator. So far it has announced the availability of a converged fixed-mobile service based on dual mode Wi-Fi/GSM handsets, but the company is confident to sign a wholesale agreement with a major mobile network operator in the next few months in order to be able to offer also unified fixed-mobile billings to its business customers.
The company also announced that anytime soon it will sign a roaming agreement regarding Wi-Fi hotspots.

Starting with the next ‘Serie A’ football season in September 2006, Telecom Italia will offer its premium content with a ‘converged’ subscription model. Through a single subscription, Telecom Italia’s customers will be able to watch live football matches delivered over IPTV (ADSL + set-top box), broadband connections (ADSL + PC) and mobile (DVB-H equipped handsets).

The Italian National Regulatory Autority (AGCOM) banned the new convergent fixed-mobile UMA service due to be launched by Telecom Italia next July.
AGCOM ordered Telecom Italia to suspend its planned UNICO service because it cannot be replicated by alternative operators due to lack of an equivalent wholesale offer

According to unconfirmed sources, Telecom Italia is planning a new UMA-based converged offer targeted to business users.

Telecom Italia decided to open its mobile network to allow competing fixed-mobile integrated services based on UMA technology.

The National Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), that previously forced Telecom Italia to postpone the launch of its UMA-based “Unico” converged service, is likely to authorize the incumbent operator to commercially launch the service, but limiting it to a maximum of 30.000 users in the next sixth month.

Tomorrow the long awaited Italian football season will begin. For the first time, Serie A football matches will also be available live over mobile DVB-H-capable videophones.

Fixed-mobile convergence, “one company” model, multi-platform content delivery, … Telecom Italia was just kidding. The new stategy of the Italian incumbent is to sell its mobile subsidiary TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile), that was merged into the main company less than two years ago with much fanfare about synergies and “strategic advantages” of the fixed-mobile convergence.

Convergence has been the most quoted word by Telecom Italia’s top management during the last couple of years.

Here is a peculiar summary of what they though about the importance of fixed-mobile convergence:

Fastweb and Vodafone announced their first fixed broadband and mobile convergent offer targeted to consumers.

Just a few days after abandoning its convergent strategy, Telecom Italia finally launched its long delayed Unico Wi-Fi/GSM service. Actually, Telecom Italia changed the name (and gender in the Italian language) from Unico to Unica.

Fastweb and Sky Italia, the Italian satellite operator fully owned by News Corporation, have today announced a major joint partnership agreement regarding content distribution and co-marketing.

BT’s Italian subsidiary finally changed its brand to simply BT Italia, abandoning the previously used ‘Albacom’ brand.

Pirelli Broadband Solutions is supplying dual-mode GSM/Wi-Fi handsets to German operator Arcor (part of Vodafone group) and French operator Free (part of Iliad group).

Telecom Italia is rolling out Alice Messenger, also dubbed "Super SMS", an instant messaging service that runs on both mobile phones and PCs.
The service works just like fixed-line instant messaging on PCs and it supports “presence”, a notice pops up on the mobile phone screen to show when somebody on the user’s contact list comes online.

The Board of Directors of Telecom Italia officially announced today that:

the company intends to launch the transformation of the access network into a New Generation Network, enabling the transmission of high-definition television programmes, movies, music and video, as well as business and public services (tele-medicine, info-mobility etc.).
The “Next Generation Network” will also involve the separation from Telecom Italia of the access network, according to a model to be jointly developed with the Authority.

Starting next January, Vodafone will allow its customers to handle both mobile calls and fixed lines calls using the same handset, even for customers not owning a fixed line.
Thanks to number portability’s regulation, even customers cancelling their fixed line subscription will be able to continue using their mobile handset to answer calls directed to their ported fixed line number.

Pirelli Broadband Solutions, will launch its new range of dual-mode GSM-WiFi handsets at the C5 World Forum next week.

The National Regulatory Authority is expected today to release new rules concerning the fixed-mobile convergent services that has been formerly blocked by harsh litigation between Telecom Italia and Vodafone.

BT Italia has been a long-time advocate of fixed-mobile converged services targeting the business community.

Although Vodafone Italia has yet to release any official sales data, its consumer FMC service (Vodafone Casa Internet e Telefono) launched last summer is rumored to be highly successful.