Vodafone Italy, legally known as Vodafone Italia S.p.A., is a subsidiary of the Vodafone Group Plc and operates as a telecommunications company in Italy. The company was formed through the merger of Omnitel Sistemi Radiocellulari Italiani S.p.A., founded in 1990, and Pronto Italia S.p.A. in December 1995. This merger led to the launch of a mobile telephony service, becoming the second in Italy after TIM. In 1999, the German consortium Mannesmann took over the majority stake in Omnitel, which was then acquired by Vodafone the following year through a merger. This led to the company being renamed as Vodafone Omnitel S.p.A. in 2002. In 2004, Vodafone Italy launched UMTS services, and in 2007, it acquired the Italian and Spanish branches of Tele2. Following this acquisition, the company launched XDSL services in Italy in 2008. In 2012, it enabled LTE technology services in Milan and Rome. In 2013, the company transformed into Vodafone Omnitel B.V., following Verizon's sale of its entire share capital to Vodafone. The company then moved its legal residence to Turin in 2015 and changed its name to Vodafone Italia S.p.A. It continues to operate as a leading telecommunications provider in Italy.
Alias
Vodafone Italia S.p.A
Country
Italy
Type
Mobile Network Operator
Ownership
Vodafone Group
Vodafone Albania Logo

3G Network

The company launched its 3G network in June 2006 over the B1 (2100 MHz) band. The network was shut down late February 2021 with spectrum refarmed to 4G.

Network Frequency Band Status
B1 (2100 MHz)
Shut Down
Date Event Subtype
Launch of 3G Network
Launch
Shutdown of 3G Network
Shut Down

4G Network

Vodafone commercially launched B3 (1800 MHz) service on November 6, 2012 in Milan and Rome. 225 Mbps LTE-Advanced service was launched on December 2, 2014 in 80 cities, rolling out to 500 cities by August 2015. The service provided 2C Carrier Aggregation of two of the bands B3, B7, or B20 depending on location. VoLTE was enabled on July 16, 2015. The network was further enhanced with B1 in early 2017 and B32 SDL in November 2017.

Vodafone announced it had completed national NB-IoT coverage by October 2018. The network uses its existing B20 (800 MHz) footprint to deploy the service.

4G Frequency Bands
Network Frequency Band Max. Channel Bandwidth Status Known EARFCNs
B1 (2100 MHz)
10
Active
501
B3 (1800 MHz)
20
Active
1850
B7 (2600 MHz)
15
Active
3025
B20 (800 MHz)
10
Active
6400
B32 (1500 MHz SDL)
20
Active
B38 (2600 MHz)
20
Active
37900
Date Event Subtype
Launch of 4G Network
Launch

5G Network

Vodafone Italia launched 5G services across five cities in June 2019 using an n78 (3500 MHz) carrier.  The service was first launched in Milan, Rome, Turin, Bologna and Naples, with around 45 to 50 cities following 2019, and rising to 100 by 2021. The company used equipment from Nokia and Huawei for the deployment of commercial 5G.

Vodafone acquired its 5G spectrum in 2018 in three bands. It secured 80 MHz TDD in the 3500 MHz band for 1,685 million EUR, 2×10 MHz FDD in the 700 MHz band for 683 million EUR and 200 MHz in the 26 GHz band for 33 million EUR.

In February 2019, the active 5G network sharing deal between Vodafone and Telecom Italia 22,000 cumulated sites was publicly disclosed. It comes after a passive network sharing agreement on 10,000 sites. The deal was designed to support a faster 5G deployment over larger geographic areas excluding urban areas, at lower costs.

Network Frequency Band Max. Channel Bandwidth Status
n1 (2100 MHz)
15
Active
n28 (700 MHz)
10
Active
n78 (3500 MHz)
80
Active
Date Event Subtype
Launch of 5G Network
Launch