Vodafone is considering buying a stake in Italy’s Metroweb in order to better compete with Telecom Italia, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
Vodafone could buy the stake from investor F2i SGR SpA, which owns 54% of the fibre-optic operator, Bloomberg said, citing three people familiar with the matter.
The sources also claimed Vodafone may face competition to buy the stake from Telecom Italia itself, the board of which gave CEO Marco Patuano a mandate to make a bid for Metroweb in September.
Vodafone already offers a 300 Mbps broadband service over Metroweb’s fibre-optic network in Milan and has plans to expand the service to another 30 Italian cities, starting with Bologna.
