Swisscom says could take years to solve Italian tower dispute

Swisscom AG

07/05/2026 11:09

By Cian Muenster

May 7 (Reuters) - Telecoms company Swisscom SCMN.S said it could take around five years to end its reliance on Italian tower operator INWIT INWT.MI and reported a 4.5% fall in its first-quarter Italian revenue year-on-year.

Meanwhile, it said it was working to speed up the integration of Vodafone Italia, which it acquired with effect from January last year.

Efforts have been complicated as Fastweb wants to exit its tower-sharing contract with Italian infrastructure company INWIT to migrate to a new arrangement with Telecom Italia TLIT.MI, or TIM. INWIT says the contract runs until 2038 and said in March it planned legal action.

CEO Christoph Aeschlimann said on a conference call on Thursday that the migration away from INWIT would take about five years.

“INWIT has an interest to sustain revenues on their towers. So we do expect that we can accommodate the full duration of the migration with a good faith discussion of migrating those towers in due time, one by one,” he said.

The group said in a statement that savings from the merger of its Italian unit Fastweb and Vodafone Italia reached 77 million euros ($90.65 million) in the first quarter of 2026, with a target of 300 million euros for the full year.

The combined business will cooperate with Telecom Italia on mobile network development, complementing existing plans to develop and operate up to 6,000 mobile tower sites.

($1 = 0.8494 euros)

(Reporting by Cian Muenster; editing by Barbara Lewis)

((Cian.Muenster@thomsonreuters.com;))