Wind/Tre merger, Iliad new
 

What will become of the Italian market?
The EU has now approved the merger of Wind and Tre, nos. 3 and 4 of the Italian market. Vimpelcom and Hutchision were lobbying hard for the deal to go through for a while now.

I thought after the failure of the Three/O2 merger in the UK and mixed reviews in 3-provider countries, the EU was not in favour of letting this happen to Italy too.
There is less competition and generally higher rates in 3-provider countries than in countries with 4 or more network operators.

What made the deal go through was probably the fact, that there are now 3 major operators on par in the country (TIM, Vodafone, Tre/Wind) roughly with the same number of customers.

What makes this deal different from Germany, Ireland or Austria. Boths merging operators have to give spectrum to a new market entrant. And this can be very interesting: the French Iliad Group will build a network in Italy. That's the same provider that shook the French market with its brand Free Mobile some years ago. They've introduced totally new rates, plans and sales channels in France.