A civil court in Rome has stopped the Italian branch of Vodafone marketing a combination fixed-line and mobile contract because it infringes rules laid down by the Italian Communications Authority.

Vodafone has suspended a national advertising campaign featuring the football players Francesco Totti and Gennaro Gattuso, pending further decisions by the Communications Ministry and the Communications Authority.

The court action was brought by Telecom Italia, the privatised descendant of the old state telephone monopoly, which continues to dominate the market with 21 million subscribers — more than 80 per cent — when Vodafone began offering a package called Vodafone Casa Numero Fisso (“house number fixed”), which Telecom perceived as a direct threat to its quasi-monopoly.

The package involves a home telephone connected by radio waves rather than by land line, maintaining the existing number previously used with Telecom. This part already exists and allows use of the “home” telephone also within a short distance from home, variable between a few yards and one kilometre, depending on antenna location, the presence of other buildings and other technical factors.

Under Italian law Telecom is obliged to hand over the number, and it has done so for more than 200,000 customers. But the new part, which prompted Telecom’s legal action, adds a mobile phone that functions as a home telephone when within range of the antenna serving the home but converts to a normal mobile, with its own number, when out of range. And this can be done using existing mobiles.

The Telecom action hinges on the concept that a fixed-line provider is obliged to hand over its fixed-line number when the customer changes to another fixed-line operator, but not when the handover also pertains to a mobile telephone. That Vodafone’s “fixed” home telephone is not served by a land line but by radio waves does not appear to be the issue, but rather that a fixed number would be transferred to a handset which, at least some of the time, is a mobile, and to a company whose primary interest is mobile telephones.

“In fact, the court’s 17-page verdict confirms the essential legitimacy of what we want to offer,” a Vodafone spokesman said. “It clearly states that Vodafone could do this by distributing new home telephone numbers. The problem regards the inter- pretation of the borderline between transferring an existing number from fixed-to-fixed and from fixed-to-mobile.”

“So far we have been taking reservations only for the new service,” Silvia de Blasio, Vodafone’s head of media relations, said. “Our prospective new clients have not made any deposits so, whatever happens, they will not lose a cent.

“But this court decision should make us reflect on how, in Italy, it seems to be forbidden to try to compete with Telecom with a service that is recognised as legitimate and is already active in other European countries,” Mr de Blasio said. “We are now hoping that the ministry and the authority will take a different position.”

Higher calling

Fixed-line market

Telecom Italia 80.0%
Wind-Infostrada 8.0%
Fastweb 4.5%
BT Albacom 3.5%
Others 4.0%

Mobile market

TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) 39.0%
Vodafone 34.0%
Wind 19.0%
H3G (Hutchinson) 8.0%

Source: Vodafone

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• Linklaters trounces rivals as UK's biggest firm
• Clifford Chance profits plunge 37 per cent
• Casual drinkers hit by spread of 'dry' zones