The Antitrust Authority fined Iliad Italia for failing or misleadingly providing essential information on mobile phone offers. At the end of an investigation that lasted almost a year, the Competition Authority established a fine of 1.2 million euros for the telephone operator, which, in violation of articles 21 and 22 of the Consumer Code, would have advertised some offers, emphasizing its compatibility with the latest 5G technology (where included) but totally omitting or providing unclear information on the conditions necessary to take advantage of this technology. For example, there would be no indications such as the verification of the territorial coverage of the Iliad 5G network and the possession of a device compatible with the specific 5G technology supported by the operator’s network.
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For the Antitrust Authority, Iliad’s promotional communications were therefore not suitable for making the consumer understand that, in order to use the fifth generation network included in the advertised offers, it was necessary to be under the geographical coverage of the 5G network of this operator. and that it was essential to have a device enabled for this specific network. In fact, a smartphone, even 5G-enabled in general, cannot ensure the use of Iliad’s 5G network, where it is not included among the devices enabled for navigation on this network. Furthermore, the Antitrust Authority ascertained that Iliad used the slogan “100 gigabytes, unlimited minutes and text messages in Italy and Europe” in a text message sent to its former customers to promote the “Flash 100 5G” offer. The text of this message was considered by the Authority capable of misleading the consumer about the content of the offer, since it would be possible to believe that the 100 GB included in the offer were all usable for traffic in Europe while in reality, in the event connection from other European countries, the traffic included in the offer was 6 GB. It must be said here that the contractual conditions are similar to those of the other operators, and in fact the fine was imposed on the basis of the communication.
The case cited in the provision is singular, where the protest of a customer who, after purchasing an iPhone 12 Pro Max on the company’s website, discovered that the Apple smartphone was not compatible with the 5G offer just signed with Iliad itself. But the same would have happened with a Samsung smartphone: “It also emerged that the devices compatible with Iliad’s 5G network at the launch date of the aforementioned offers belonged to five manufacturers of smartphones approved for the fifth generation network (Huawei, Oppo , Xiaomi, Motorola and Nokia), which did not include the most popular devices in the Italian market (such as Samsung and Apple), some of which, however, were on sale on the professional’s website, where they were presented with the 5G tag in evidence . “
“The sanction that Agcm has decided to impose on Iliad concerns the only way in which the operator provides information on the territorial areas covered by 5G and devices compatible with this technology“, underlines the company in response to a request for comments from by Italian.Tech. “It seems to us an unjustified decision, considering the spirit of collaboration always shown and the numerous solutions proposed by Iliad in the discussion phase with Agcm, as well as being deeply unfair, especially taking into account the fact that Iliad constantly acts with great attention to users and communicates this same information in a much more transparent way than competitors do. “
The telephone operator closed 2021 with over 8.5 million users and a market share of over 10 percent. A result all the more striking as it was achieved in less than four years: Iliad made its debut in Italy on 29 May 2018, and only recently has it added the fixed network offer to the mobile one. And it can also count on an excellent customer satisfaction rate, achieved by focusing on the transparency of rates and contracts. Thus, the company reports, “while not considering such disputes to be shared, it is important for us to always act with a great spirit of collaboration and for this Iliad has responded by proposing numerous commitments aimed at increasing the visibility of the disputed information, already present on our channels, also adding the proposal to make a refund of 19.98 euros to all users who had reported a problem in using the 5G service to Iliad assistance “.
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“The Antitrust sanction confirms that the telephony sector is a jungle where it is very difficult for the consumer to extricate himself, between offers that are not transparent and unclear conditions – explains the president of Codacons Carlo Rienzi – Misleading information that changes the choices of users and causes direct economic damage to consumers “. They are not the only ones to rejoice: as we can still read in the Antitrust device, in fact, two consumer associations (Union for the Defense of Consumers and Confconsumatori) and the telephone operator Tim reported the Iliad communications to the Agcm.