Minister plays down WiMAX cost

Italy’s Ministry of Communications is playing down the cost of freeing up 3.5GHz spectrum which can be used for WiMAX applications. The spectrum is currently used for military radar systems and the Minister of Defence has said it would cost EUR400 million to transfer the systems to a new band. However, WiMAX Day quotes the Minister of Communications, Paolo Gentiloni, who says that the true cost of freeing up the frequencies would be closer to EUR20 million. Gentiloni says it would be possible to construct a WiMAX network covering the whole of Italy for around half of the sum proposed by the Ministry of Defence.