VimpelCom Italian subsidiary Wind acquires LTE license for €977 million

The Italian government has sold three LTE licenses in the 800 Mhz frequency range for a total of €3.7 billion. Wind Telecomunicazioni, a fully owned subsidiary of VimpelCom, paid €977 million for the license and intends to bid for further frequencies in the 1,800, 2,000 and 2,600 Mhz ranges. The other successful license auction bidders were Telecom Italia and Vodafone.

Wind became a fully owned subsidiary of VimpelCom last spring when the two entities combined assets to create the world’s sixth largest mobile telecom provider by volume of subscribers.

The group operates in 20 countries including Russia where VimpelCom, under the Beeline brand, stands among the three leading mobile operators.
Source: Vedomosti