Telecom Italia (TIM) and Fastweb+Vodafone have announced plans to form a tower joint venture in Italy.

In an announcement today (March 19), the two telcos confirmed a non-binding agreement has been signed for the development and management of up to 6,000 new mobile phone towers.

The JV will help the telcos to accelerate their respective nationwide 5G rollouts.

TIM and Fastweb+Vodafone will share the infrastructure, while it will also be made available to third-party telecommunications operators on the basis of an open-access model.

The JV's ownership could potentially include third-party investors in the future, added the companies.

"The project will enable TIM and Fastweb+Vodafone to improve operational efficiency and bring costs into line with the European average, while maintaining high infrastructure quality standards and the technological flexibility required for the development of next-generation networks," TIM said in a statement.

Construction of the new towers will be carried out as part of a multi-year development plan. The two carriers will act as anchor tenants for the new infrastructure, entering into long-term agreements for the use of the towers at market prices.

Reuters reports that both telcos have been pushing to ​renegotiate the terms of their costly contracts with infrastructure company Inwit, which has around 25,000 towers in the country. It's reported that TIM and Fastweb+Vodafone generate a large bulk of Inwit's €1 billion ($1.15bn) revenue.

Financial terms of the JV were not disclosed, while the JV is pending regulatory approvals.

Telecom Italia (TIM) and Fastweb+Vodafone previously signed a 5G network sharing agreement in January, which sees the duo cooperate on the development of mobile access networks through a Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing model.