Italy’s Noverca plans to close down its MVNO service later this year a nd has signed an agreement to transfer its customers to Telecom Italia’s mobile unit.
The Italian incumbent will pay up to €3.9 million for the users. The final total will depend on how many of Noverca’s 170,000 customers choose to migrate to TIM and on the type of customers that make the move, Telecom Italia announced late last week.
Customers moving to TIM will be able to maintain their price plans "substantially unchanged", Telecom Italia said.
TIM already operates as the host network for Noverca’s mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) service.
Noverca is pulling out of the consumer business and will close down its service in early May. It will focus instead on its mobile virtual network aggregator (MVNA) operations, helping other MVNOs to partner with network operators. It will continue to work with TIM as its network operator partner.
"The agreement allows Telecom Italia to strengthen its customer base and confirm its leadership in terms of number of customers in the Italian mobile telephony market," Telecom Italia said.
TIM had 30.4 million mobile lines in Italy at the end of September.
