Italian telco Wind Tre says it is looking to launch its first 5G networks by the end of next year. A report from Light Reading cites the operator’s CTO Benoit Hanssen as saying that he expects the ‘first parts of the country’ to see 5G deployment in late 2019. He added, however, that the commercial availability of 5G-capable handsets will limit 5G take-up until at least 2020 or 2021.
Wind Tre was one of five bidders in the Italian government’s recent auction of 5G spectrum, bidding a total of EUR516.5 million (USD590 million) for frequencies in the 3.7GHz and 26GHz bands, but missing out on 700MHz frequencies which were acquired by rival cellcos TIM, Vodafone and Iliad.
