International MVNO Lycamobile has launched services in Italy, piggybacking on the network of disruptive 3G carrier 3 Italia.

The service provider has announced the launch of a prepay SIM card, available at over 65,000 retail outlets from this week.

In keeping with its target market of migrant workers, international calls are priced from €0.09 per minute, with national calls from €0.15 per minute. On net Lycamobile to Lycamobile calls are free for the first 15 minutes, and a promotional campaign will also offer free text messages to anywhere in the world until the end of July.

Lycamobile has launched its prepaid SIM only MVNO services in the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and the UK, with almost four million subscribers in total.

3 Italia is the smallest mobile operator in Italy, with 8.88 million subscribers at the end of March. TIM (Telecom Italia) heads up the market with 34 million users, followed by Vodafone with 27 million and Wind with 17 million.