Marconi and Airspan to launch world’s largest WiMAX trial

Equipment suppliers Marconi and Airspan are teaming up to conduct what they claim is world’s largest public WiMAX trial to date, providing connectivity in the Piedmont and Sicily regions of Italy. The project is being overseen by the Ministries of Communications and Defence, and the Ugo Bordoni Foundation, which is coordinating the trial at a national level. Marconi will deploy Airspan’s AS.MAX WiMAX products, which are IEEE 802.16-2004 compliant and can be upgraded to IEEE 802.16e for Spatial Division Multiple Access (SDMA) advanced services at a later date.