Italian WiMax - Battle Heats Up

The Ministry of Communications in Italy says it has received 29 bids for licences to offer WiMax services in the country. The Ministry plans to open the bids on the 30th of this month and start making awards shortly afterwards. Those bidding are known to include most of the major telecoms operators currently active in Italy, including broadband ISP service provider FastWeb, fixed and mobile player Wind and of course the ubiquitous Telecom Italia. The government sees WiMax as a key technology for expanding the availability of broadband in the country.

In October of last year, the Italian government announced that it would auction off no fewer than 35 licences for WiMax frequencies in the 3.4GHz - 3.6GHz band. At the time, the Rome administration said that each licence will cost at least euros 45 million and that it would offer two competing franchises in each of the largest seven regions of the country. A further 21 licences will be assigned at a regional level but reserved for companies that do not already own UMTS spectrum, the Ministry said.

The licenses will last for 15 years, can be renewed but cannot be sold on to a third party without government permission. Italian consumer association Adiconsum expressed serious concerns about the selling procedure, as it said some licenses risked going to operators that already use UMTS.

The Italian government had initially planned to sell the WiMax licences earlier in 2007, but it repeatedly postponed the project.