Telecom Italia plans to unite its fixed, mobile and Internet service offerings under the TIM brand.
The Italian incumbent announced late last week that it has begun a rebranding and repositioning process that will be completed in 2016.
TIM, or Telecom Italia Mobile, is currently used only for the telco’s mobile operations, but the extension of the brand suggests Telecom Italia is looking to a future of converged services.
Telecom Italia also announced that it will introduce flat-rate pricing for its fixed-line service. From 1 May the telco’s fixed service will include unlimited calls to domestic fixed and mobile numbers for a flat fee of €29 per month, or €44.90 including ADSL broadband. It will move to a monthly billing schedule from July.
The announcements came as Telecom Italia CEO Marco Patuano provided an update on the operator’s ongoing 2014-2016 strategic plan. The telco claims to have "smashed" its annual targets laid out under the plan, having reached 80% of the Italian population with 4G and covered around 30% of the country with fibre.
"We have exceeded the annual targets set in the 2014-2016 industrial plan by a significant margin," said Patuano, in a statement.
"The results achieved have caused Telecom Italia to change its competitive paradigm, moving from a ma rket in which competition between operators was based on the so-called ‘price war’ to a market that is instead characterised by service quality and, even more so, by the full availability of an ultrabroadband network to exploit innovative products," he added.
