Summary

  • AGCOM authorized Wind Tre to simulate 3G retirement by disabling UMTS access on customer profiles, not by switching off its remaining 900 MHz carrier.
  • Because selected customers cannot opt out and experience the same service changes during the trial, AGCOM requires shutdown-level notice, remedies and reporting.

The distinction between a test and a shutdown sounds obvious at the network layer. Wind Tre will not switch off the remaining 900 MHz UMTS carrier across a region. It will change individual customer profiles so selected SIMs and devices cannot use the 3G layer. The configuration is reversible, and AGCOM says this approach avoids direct impact on MVNO customers, Iliad users and international roamers that use the shared network. Yet Delibera 217/26/CONS, published on 13 October, does not let the word “trial” settle the question of customer harm. A subscriber selected by the operator cannot decline inclusion.

While the block remains, the customer encounters the same practical limits as after a permanent 3G shutdown. AGCOM therefore applies the protections for a real cessation to the experiment itself.

That is the decision’s important boundary. The operator is testing the user-side effects of a shutdown while preserving the network-side ability to reverse course. The trial is not authorization to physically turn off the carrier, and it does not resolve the later impact on wholesale customers. AGCOM says a permanent shutdown would affect MVNOs and Iliad and must come through a separate application and proceeding. The immediate authorization concerns Wind Tre and Very Mobile customers only.

The affected customers are not one technical population. AGCOM describes three clusters, with several user types inside them. A 3G-only SIM can leave data on 2G until the SIM is replaced; Wind Tre is to provide that replacement free. A device that only supports 3G requires a new 4G-capable terminal. A 4G device manually locked to 3G needs its settings changed or it too falls back to 2G for data. A further group has 4G equipment but no working VoLTE configuration on Wind Tre: voice and data remain available, but cannot run at the same time during a call. The decision calls for work with handset makers to enable VoLTE on these devices.

The remedies follow the customer’s actual next step. Customers who need a replacement SIM or device reconfiguration must receive individual notice at least 30 days in advance, so they can act before a loss of performance. Customers with a 3G-only terminal must receive three months’ advance notice to them, AGCOM and the ministry. The sharper contractual remedy is narrower: where the customer must buy a 4G-capable device, AGCOM treats that expense as a negative technical change and requires an individual notice of at least 30 days with exit from the offer without penalty or deactivation charges.

Business M2M equipment that cannot read SMS also needs email notice. AGCOM separately requires one month’s notice for customers who will lose simultaneous voice and data because of VoLTE limitations.

These distinctions matter because “4G is faster” does not answer whether a particular customer has to spend money, change a setting or accept a changed call experience. In its legal assessment, AGCOM says the other clusters do not face a contractual deterioration because newer networks are more capable and there is no concrete loss of coverage or additional charge. That is the regulator’s conclusion for this record, not proof that every handset, location or use case will behave identically. The population table is partly redacted, including the Phase 1 sample and cluster totals.

No public estimate of the number of affected lines can be derived from this decision.

AGCOM has also turned the experiment into a reporting obligation. Two weeks after the trial begins, Wind Tre must send the regulator a detailed report; monthly reports must then show the number of customers affected in each cluster, SIM replacements, complaints and corrective measures. Those fields connect the initial customer classification to observed outcomes. A plan can predict that only certain users will need to act; complaint and remediation records can show where that prediction was wrong. The decision does not say the test has started, and it contains no reports or outcome data.

The authorization reflects a transition process already under way. AGCOM’s 2020 spectrum decision required operators seeking technological refarming to plan the move away from 3G, protect users with 3G-only terminals and provide timely information. Vodafone switched off 3G in 2021, followed by TIM in 2022. Wind Tre had already refarmed some carriers and was using its final available 900 MHz carrier for UMTS. The 2026 decision makes a more specific question visible: can an operator learn how a shutdown will affect customers without temporarily applying the same restriction it proposes to study?

AGCOM’s answer is yes, but the legal classification follows the customer impact from the first day.

The practical test now moves to execution. The start date, delivery of each notice, replacement-SIM uptake, VoLTE configuration, complaints by cluster and corrective action should be observable in the monthly record. If the data show that users were placed in the wrong cluster, that M2M alerts failed, or that a 4G setting did not restore service as expected, the remedy must follow that evidence. A later decision on physically disabling the carrier remains a separate question, with a wider footprint than this profile-level trial.

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