By Mauro Orru

The European Commission granted conditional approval to the merger between Telecom Italia SpA's Infrastrutture Wireless Italiane SpA and Vodafone Group PLC's Italian tower unit, the commission said in a statement on Friday.

The two companies reached a deal in July 2019 in a move that is expected to facilitate the deployment of 5G at lower costs across a wide geographical area in Italy.

"Fast roll-out of 5G technology in Italy will benefit Italian consumers and businesses. Today we approve the creation of a joint venture between two mobile operators who are planning to combine their telecommunication towers to jointly achieve this objective, without compromising retail and wholesale competition," said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president in charge of competition policy.

Conditional approval comes after Telecom Italia and Vodafone agreed to a package of remedies to address competition concerns.

Inwit agreed to provide free space on 4,000 towers in Italian municipalities with more than 35,000 inhabitants where third parties could install, operate, maintain and use their equipment, the European Commission said.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 06, 2020 12:09 ET (17:09 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD)
Gráfico Histórico do Ativo
De Mar 2024 até Abr 2024 Click aqui para mais gráficos Vodafone.
Vodafone (NASDAQ:VOD)
Gráfico Histórico do Ativo
De Abr 2023 até Abr 2024 Click aqui para mais gráficos Vodafone.