Vodafone Italia

Vodafone Italia SpA
legal form	Società per Azioni
founding	1994 (Omnitel); 2003 (Vodafone Italia);
Seat	Ivrea , Italy
management	Pietro Guindani, Chairman of the Board ; Aldo Bisio, CEO ;
Number of employees	7,000 (2018)
sales	EUR 6.20 billion (2018)
Branch	telecommunications
Website	www.vodafone.it

The Vodafone Italia SpA is an Italian mobile and fixed network providers . With Telecom Italia , Wind Tre and Iliad Italia , Vodafone is one of the largest mobile network operators on the Italian market .

history

The later Vodafone Italia was founded in 1994 as Omnitel. This was the first time that the telecommunications monopoly of SIP (now TIM) was broken. In 1996, Omnitel acquired a GSM mobile phone license for 15 years, and the expansion of the network began in the same year. At the end of 1996 the then Omnitel was already reaching 60% of the Italian population. The Vodafone Group plc. joined the Omnitel company in 1999. At the end of 2003, Vodafone and Verizon Communications took over the group. The only brand that was used immediately was Vodafone Italia, but the company behind Vodafone was still called Vodafone Omnitel NV until 2015

Vodafone Italy's GSM network was upgraded to GPRS in 2002 and from then on could also transmit internet data. Two years later, the company started expanding UMTS technology internationally , including in Italy. In 2006 Vodafone upgraded its UMTS network to the HSDPA standard, thus enabling faster mobile data. In the same year, Vodafone enters the fixed network market. Five years later , Vodafone upgraded its UMTS network to the HSPA + standard, and Vodafone also upgraded its GSM network in 2011 - six years after the local competition - to EDGE technology. In September, Vodafone acquired an LTE license in Italy. The new headquarters of Vodafone was opened in Italy in 2012 called "Vodafone Village" and in October 2012 the LTE expansion will start. Verizon withdrew from the company in 2013, making Vodafone Omnitel NV a 100% subsidiary of the Vodafone Group . In April of the same year, Vodafone started with FTTH in Milan, enabling speeds of up to 300 Mbit / s. Vodafone will be the second operator to start in Italy in 2014 with LTE-Advanced and advertise it under the name 4G + . Vodafone published figures for the previous network in 2015. Vodafone offers fiber optics in over 100 cities, LTE-Advanced in 700 towns and LTE in 5900 towns. Vodafone currently employs around 6,500 people. On November 22, 2015, the company behind Vodafone changed. Vodafone Omnitel NV became Vodafone Italia SpA and its subsidiary Vodafone Gestioni SpA, based in Ivrea and Milan . Vodafone announced on April 1, 2016 that 19,039 transmitter locations are currently in operation (without provisional locations at e.g. trade fairs), of which 16,324 are transmitting GSM, 18,376 UMTS and 12,956 LTE. In the future, Vodafone wants to continue investing in its network and connect 7 million households to the fiber optic network. Also in 2016, the gsm 1800 was switched off in order to increase the LTE 1800 from 15 to 20 MHz bandwidth and thus the maximum speed from 112 to 150 Mbit / s. In addition, the first three carrier LTE systems that radiate and bundle three LTE bands were switched on in Rome, Milan and Merano. These enable a speed of up to 340 Mbit / s. The expansion plan is aimed primarily at touristically important places and large cities. In 2017, Vodafone began to switch off its UMTS 2100 MHz UTMS network in order to use the spectrum freed up for LTE.

network

Vodafone's mobile network is broadcast from almost 20,000 locations across Italy, the suppliers of the station hardware are Nokia Networks and Huawei .

Vodafone LTE location with Huawei antennas and LTE up to 340 Mbit / s in Merano

Vodafone relies on four network levels in Italy, GSM, UMTS, LTE and 5G, reaching around 99.8% of the population with GSM, 97.1% with UMTS and 95% with LTE. The frequency range around 2100, 1800, 900 and 800 MHz is mainly transmitted by Vodafone's mobile radio systems; 1500 and 2600 are also used in some cases. The endings of the five- and two-digit LTE-Cell ID are 11-12-13 for 800 MHz, 31-32-33 for 1800, 41-42-43 for 2100 and 51-52-53 for 2600. Vodafone's locations mainly rely on multiband antennas. After Telecom Italia, Vodafone started as the second mobile operator with LTE Advanced and operates the second most LTE Advanced transmission systems in Italy. The combination of band 800 + 1800 + 2100 is the most commonly used combination. Vodafone's mobile network is displayed as "vodafone IT". Vodafone has also been offering 5G services since summer 2019. As a second business area, Vodafone offers fixed internet services, ADSL2 + (up to 20 Mbit / s, all 7 Mbit / s tariffs have been upgraded to 20 Mbit / s.) And fiber optics up to 1000 Mbit / s with FTTH, (only in Milan , Bologna and Turin ) and up to 100 Mbit / s via FTTC (mostly via Wholesale of Telecom Italia).