Following “a very difficult price war”, Marco Patuano, Telecom Italia CEO, told Mobile World Live about the operator’s thinking in its heavy backing for a 4G rollout.

Telecom Italia is in the process of rolling out LTE-Advanced services with carrier aggregation, doubling the available download speeds.

The CEO believes customers want value for money. When his company started pricing 4G at a premium it realised it was hard “to explain to customers that they have to pay for something they consider natural”.

But because 4G customers are “addicted to data” they are willing to pay for more of it, which is where the company sees the most potential to monetise.

“The customer is willing to pay more for quality as well as quantity,” he added.

When asked about the importance of having mobile as well as fixed assets, he said it’s only natural for an advanced market to have both and that the customer will only care that they are having the same experience wherever they use their phones.

The full video can be seen here.