Italy Aggressively Pursues Wi-Fi and WiMAX

Mario Landolfi, Minister for Communications


Under new policies and initiatives from its Ministry of Communications, Italy is turning to Wi-Fi and WiMAX to make broadband Internet access more universally available throughout the country. First, on October 4th, the Minister for Communications, Mario Landolfi, issued a new decree which extended the availability of Wi-Fi -- already being used in airports, train stations, shopping centers and city parks -- to the whole country.

''About 11 million Italians live in small towns and many of them do not have access to broadband because the investment required would not be economically viable for large companies," said Landolfi at the press conference where the decree was announced. "This measure enables any providers, if they so wish, to reach customers who would otherwise be excluded.''

Italy has no cable television and therefore cable modems for broadband access simply don't exist there. DSL has been the only broadband option available for small business and residential access. And in many places outside the larger cities, the copper infrastructure isn't adequate to carry DSL frequencies. As a result, broadband penetration is relatively low and is only available to about 11 million citizens according to Landolfi.

"Now service providers will be able to compete on equal terms in the Internet and broadband markets, overcoming some of the obstacles they faced through new wireless technologies," Landolfi added. "The new decree creates the conditions for new activities in areas that are most affected by the digital divide. But also the rest of the country will benefit. We expect to see new access points and new services in smaller towns and in mountain communities."

The move is viewed by Italy's ISPs as an important step forward, putting Italy's spectrum allocations more in line with other European countries and opening the door for Internet providers large and small to greatly extend broadband services. The decree is framed in such a way that users will be able to connect to access points from different providers and the Ministry expects that ISPs will make roaming agreements, similar to what is currently available with mobile telephone services.

Italy's National Association of Small Towns has also applauded the new decree as an important move to bring broadband to rural regions of the country.

Countrywide WiMAX Trials
Along with making Wi-Fi available to any service provider -- which Landolfi admits cannot fully meet the broadband demand if frequencies get overloaded and performance degrades -- the Italian Communications Ministry has announced what some vendors have described as the largest public trial of WiMAX to date. This will involve pilot, proof-of-concept projects across Italy by multiple vendors. A working party has been formed from representatives from the Italian Ministry of Communications, the Italian Ministry of Defense and the Ugo Bordoni Foundation, a research center with extensive technical expertise, to oversee the trials. The Foundation is directly responsible for coordinating the projects at a national level and for selecting proposals.

Several vendors have already been selected. Marconi and Airspan announced that they will be providing WiMAX connectivity in three locations in Italy 's Piedmont and Sicily regions. Siemens AG also announced they would start trials in Valle d'Aosta, a region in North Italy and that these would later extend to Abruzzo, Piemonte, and the islands of Sicily and Sardinia.

Carlton O'Neal, Alvarion vice-president of marketing

Most recently, Alvarion Ltd. announced that multiple operators, through Alvarion's local partners, have purchased its WiMAX-ready platform, BreezeMAX 3500, to conduct 11 WiMAX trials across Italy -- the most of any vendor participating in the program so far. Pilot systems



are now operating in Milan, Rome, Arezzo, Piedmont, Val d'Aosta, Sardinia, Abruzzo, Sicily and Parma with the trials scheduled for completion by the end of this year.

All of the trials announced to date are using the IEEE 802.16-2004 standard, or what are generally referred to as WiMAX-ready systems that are expected to be WiMAX certified when actual certification begins next year.

"Because of broadband access challenges and because WiMAX is attracting more and more interest from municipalities in other countries, the Italian Ministry of Communications stepped up the plate to fund these trails," explained Carlton O'Neal, vice-president of marketing at Alvarion. "In essence, they decided that they would use their technological expertise, and by extension the expertise of the Ugo Bordoni Foundation, to request and review bids and to award winners."

"These really are laboratory quality trials that will allow the cities to both learn the technology and what its capabilities and limitations are," O'Neal added. "And while the trials are limited in scope -- usually one base station and a few CPEs -- they will give towns and cities a chance to learn enough to go to the next step, which is to design a full network."

By utilizing both Wi-Fi and WiMAX to augment existing DSL, the Italian Communications Ministry hopes to make high speed Internet access rapidly available throughout the country. "Broadband is one of the government's political priorities and we are giving it our backing in every way," Landolfi explained.