According to an unconfirmed report by Telecompaper, Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) is currently in the midst of staging a week-long trial of its in-deployment Long Term Evolution (LTE) network in Milan. Until 21 April Milanese citizens can sample transmission speeds of up to 100Mbps (downstream) and 50Mbps (upstream) at selected TIM retail stores. The promotion follows similar events in Turin and Rome, and the telco has indicated that further demonstrations are planned for other major Italian cities over the coming months.
TIM secured three blocks of spectrum in the 2.6GHz band and two blocks of 800MHz spectrum, as well as frequencies in the 1800MHz band, in Italy’s mobile spectrum auction which concluded last autumn. The tender closed after 22 days and 469 separate rounds of bidding, with Italy’s four mobile network operators – TIM, Vodafone Italy, Wind Telecomunicazione (Wind Italy) and 3 Italia – submitting combined bids worth in excess of EUR3.9 billion (USD5.1 billion).