Siemens Italia has confirmed it will launch trials of the WiMax technology in July. The trials, which will have an exclusively technological character, will be aimed at evaluating coverage and performance in an urban, suburban and rural framework. The trials will initially regard the regions of North Italy, first of all Valle d'Aosta, but will be later extended to all those areas authorised by the Communications Ministry, which will monitor the implementation with the support of the Ugo Bordoni Foundation. At the same time, Siemens will launch interoperability tests in the only authorised centre by the WiMax Forum: the CETECOM at Malaga. The development of WiMax has been delayed in Italy because only recently the Ministry of Defence “freed up” the spectrum between 3.4 and 3.6 GHz in the regions of Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta, Sicily, Sardinia, Abruzzo and in the Milan, Parma, Arezzo and Rome areas. Siemens has already prepared a project for the coverage of the entire Italian territory, foreseeing investments of EUR 200-300 million, the installation of 2,000 to 3,000 base stations over a 1-2 year time frame. According to the chief executive of Siemens Com Italia, Luigi De Vecchis, also taking part in the trials will be the leading telephony operators and some Public Administration.
