History
Wind was established on 1 December 1997 by Enel, France Télécom and Deutsche Telekom, which sold Wind in 2005 to Weather Investments.[5][9]
In 1999 Olivetti sells Infostrada to Mannesmann and in 2001 it will become the property of Enel, which will incorporate it in 2002 into Wind, that continued to use the brand.[5]
In 2006 the group appointed Khaled Bichara as the chief operating officer of the company.
In 2011 Wind became part of VimpelCom group, after a merger between the Russian company and the Egyptian Orascom Telecom: the newborn group appointed Khaled Bichara Chairman of Wind and Ossama Bessada CEO, after Luigi Gubitosi's exit.[4]
Wind was the third mobile operator to join the Italian market, after TIM (formerly SIP) and Vodafone (formerly Omnitel).
Wind had run a GSM (900/1800/E900), GPRS, EDGE, UMTS (videocall and mobile broadband), HSPA and LTE network. While the GSM/GPRS/EDGE network is available almost everywhere, UMTS, HSPA and LTE are still expanding in the country. Wind has been also the exclusive provider for Italy of i-mode.
In April 2013, Wind announced it would be investing $1.3 billion on building a fourth-generation (4G) mobile broadband network to catch-up with its rivals TIM and Vodafone.[10]
During 2015 and 2016, an agreement was stipulated between CK Hutchison Holdings, owner of 3 Italy, and VimpelCom for the creation of an equal joint venture in Italy.[6]
On December 31, 2016, Wind was merged with 3 Italy into Wind Tre.[7]
Despite the merger, the Wind and Infostrada brands continued to operate independently of the 3 Italy brand in the private sector.
On May 23, 2017 Wind Business was merged with 3 Business, giving life to Wind Tre Business, which combines all the services dedicated to VAT-registered customers and companies.[11]
On March 16, 2020, after the merger of the Wind-3 mobile networks completed at the end of 2019, the company carried out a rebranding, replacing the old Wind and 3 Italy brands with the new Wind Tre single brand, both for mobile telephony and for fixed-line telephony.[8]
