Italy to selling WiMAX licenses by June
Italy will start selling licenses for WiMAX-capable frequencies by June 2007. The planned sale, which the Italian Communications Ministry announced late on Wednesday, was welcomed on Thursday by Tiscali (TIS.MI) and Fastweb (FWB.MI) while analysts said the auction was also likely to also attract bids from Telecom Italia.
The sale is expected to generate between 100 million and 200 million euros for the Italian state, far below the billions gained from the sale of 3G mobile phone licenses at the peak of the high-tech boom, analysts said.
"Tiscali has successfully tested WiMAX technology and sees with favor the opening up of frequencies (in Italy)," said Mario Mariano, who heads Tiscali's operations in Italy.
A source at broadband provider Fastweb, which has already tested the technology in northern Italy, said the company also considers WiMAX a potential opportunity.
Like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, WiMAX uses radio frequency rather than conventional wires to beam the Internet and data to laptops and mobile gadgets but its main attraction lies in the low number of base stations required to create a network.
The technology uses a prime sliver of frequency which can support mobile Internet because it can hold relatively large amounts data but can also travel relatively long distances.
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