Major news on Wi-Max in ITALY – Competitive tender for licenses allocation

On 26^th September 2007, the Broadband Business Forum and Von Italy took place in Rome. During the session, dedicated to the new BWA technologies, the Minister of Communications, Mr Gentiloni, officially stated that the competitive tender for the WiMax license allocation is to be held in the next few days. Later, in the section dedicated to Questions and Answers, Mr Vimercati, Communications deputy Minister, assured that the possibility to choose between the standard 802.16d (the 2004) and version 802.16e will be granted to the winners of the tender. Having been asked on the same subject, Mr Decina, Professor of Telecommunications Faculty at Politecnico of Milan and President of Ugo Bordoni Foundation, confirmed that the option to choose freely between the two standards will be left to the winners.

WiMax update for Italy

Some public examinations announced by the Ministry of Communications – involving trade associations like Assoprovider (AIIP), manufacturing industries, fix, mobile and WLL operators, and consumers’ associations and preliminary to the technological experimentation phase took place in October 2004.

From these examinations a strong interest towards the fixed WiMax technology became clear: the entirety of the sector’s operators expectations were addressed to the use of WiMax in the frequency band of 3,4-3,6 GHz rather than in the shared band used in the rest of Europe. We have to underline that, when the public examinations took place, the so called “WiFi decree” dated 4th October 2005 had not been issued and the concept of “WiFi range ” had to be read as the overcoming of the restriction of the laws in use.

During the WiFi Forum the use of 2,3-2,7 GHz (licensed band) and 5,725-5,85 GHz (not-licensed band) in addition to the already mentioned 3,4-3,6 GHz band and its extensions 3,3-3,4 GHz e 3,6-3,8 GHz had been proposed. Basically the destination use for these frequencies bands in Italy, as established by the National Plan of frequencies distribution approved by the Ministry of Communications, followed the expectations.

In particular, in picture we see that the band 2,5-2,690 GHz (destined, according to the WiMax Forum indications, to the mobile WiMax) has to be destined, from January 2008, to the IMT2000/UMTS services (see notes 163A, 163B and 164 from the National Plan of frequencies distribution, dated 5^th July 2005). It shows that the frequencies which will be proposed to the fixed WiMax, are, at the moment, used by radiolocation services and are now managed by the Ministry of Defence. This Ministry, in the already mentioned technological experimentation, allowed, in some areas of Italy, the use of some parts of the frequency band 3,4-3,6 GHz.

The activities carried out induced the Authority for the Communication Warranties (“Garante delle Telcomunicazioni”) to call a 60 days public consultation, in November 2006, aiming “to obtain information and documentation elements” useful to regulation purposes and to evaluate the interest towards the above mentioned band in order to justify “ its limits at the services and networks characteristics”.

After that, in December 2006, the Ministry of Defence issued a press release announcing the start of a table of negatition with the Ministry of Communications to the progressive transfer in frequency of their 3,5 GHz band radar and telecommunication services, requested for the development of the services supported by the WiMax technology in the territory”.

Thanks to these negotiations, 35+35 MHz in the 3.4÷3.6 GHz band – divisible even in more than one national macro areas – will be available from June 2007.

As heard in the last Broadband Access Forum meeting held in Naples, in 16th January 2007, the Italian Ministry of Communications will make a public tender of the frequencies for WiMax next June 2007. It will be interesting to see if incumbents will create speculations, buying licenses they will never use, as happened with WLL in 2002!!

For more information on WiMax in Italy, please feel free to contact Nino Patane’: info@trendeurope.com

Wi-Fi, Breaking news: Draft IEEE 802.11n is now approved!

It’s done: 100 votes in favor, 0 negative votes, 5 abstentions. Wi-Fi specs draft IEEE 802.11n are now approved! Only 75% of postive votes would have been enough, 100% represents a big achievement  and a sign of commitment. The new draft will be numbered 2.0 (Draft 2.0 IEEE 802.11n). Most of the available devices could require a firmware upgrade. The direction toward 802.11n is very strong so we can expect a gradual replacement of 11g devices into 11n devices. A new run of PTT approval processes will be necessary for all manuifacturers.  We are experts in supporting international companies in fulfilling PTT regulations and approval processes. If you need to know more, please feel fre to contact us: info@trendeurope.com