Shares in Vodafone Group PLC (LON:VOD) moved up in early trading Wednesday as its Italian unit purchased spectrum that would enable it to deploy 5G mobile technology.
The FTSE 100 telecoms firm said the spectrum, purchased for €2.4bn in an auction held by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, included ranges of 3700 megahertz to 80 MHz, 700 MHz to 2x 10 MHz, and 26 gigahertz to 200 MHz.
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Vodafone said the 3700 MHz spectrum would be immediately available to enhance coverage, improve capacity, and rapidly develop 5G services, while the 700 MHz would be available from 2022 to enhance 5G and provide “nationwide coverage at very high speed and very low latency for next-generation applications”.
The 26 GHz, meanwhile, would be used from January 2019 to deliver high capacity services to densely populated locations such as city centres, sports stadiums or industrial plants.
The company added that it was leading 5G trials in Milan and expected to achieve 80% coverage of the city by December.
Shares were up 1.3% at 162p.