Telecom Italia steps up spending at home, slows debt reduction

Telecom Italia plans to step up its spending on building out faster fixed and mobile networks in its home market over the next three years, where it sees core earnings returning to growth from 2017, the company said on Tuesday. The former national monopoly network operator, which has been struggling for years with a lack of a clear strategy and is regarded as a potential takeover target, also reported a 20 percent drop in core earnings last year, hit by one-off charges totaling 1.08 billion euro