Worlds Largest WiMAX Trial

Marconi says that it has been selected to support the largest public WiMAX trial to date, providing WiMAX connectivity in Italy's Piedmont and Sicily regions. The selection was made by a working party that included representatives from the Italian Ministry of Communications, the Italian Ministry of Defence, and the Ugo Bordoni Foundation, which is coordinating the trial at a national level.

Working in partnership with Airspan Networks, Marconi will deploy Airspan's AS.MAX family of WiMAX broadband wireless access products. The AS.MAX product family is IEEE 802.16-2004 compliant and due to its Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology, it can be upgraded to be IEEE 802.16e compliant, to include Spatial Division Multiple Access advanced services.

"This trial is an exciting development for the broadband wireless access market in Europe. Marconi's involvement in the first ever public trials highlights our unique capability and expertise in implementing multiservice wireless networks," said Giorgio Bertolina, managing director of Southern Europe and Central & Latin America for Marconi. "The trial will ensure that, in the future, economic broadband wireless connectivity is made available for every resident and business in diverse geographical areas of Italy."

"The progress made in Italy towards embracing the benefits of the WiMAX technology has been very impressive," said Mahir Ozdamar, Airspan's vice president of business development. "We believe that WiMAX will give the customers in Italy more choice and more flexible broadband access. We are very pleased with the progress we have made with Marconi as our partner and look forward to serving the Italian community with our technology."

The Airspan AS.MAX product family has been submitted for the initial phase of the WiMAX compatibility certification trials that are currently being carried out at CETECOMTM, the official certification laboratory of WiMAX ForumTM, located in Malaga, Spain."

Posted to the site on 19th September 2005