On 28th October 1999, the Italian Communications Authority invited all companies of Member States of the WTO to communicate their interest in operating a public telecommunications access network based on point-to-multipoint Wireless Local Loop (WLL) systems in the 24.5 - 26.5 GHZ frequency band, and in particular in the 24.5 - 25.1090 and 25.4450 - 26.1170 GHZ band. The call for comments closed on 10th December and around 30 expressions of interest were received. The authority also requested comments on the two possible procedures for spectrum allocation :
- individual national licence for the installation and the exercise of a public network based on WLL broadband systems for integrated data-voice services, including also interactive multimedia,
- bandwidth assigned on a provisional basis.
In order to ensure an efficient use of the spectrum, a complete re-use of the available frequency by means of polarisation diversity is envisaged. Thus the minimal allocation for each operator should of 56 MHz paired or 2 paired channels of 28 MHz for polarisation (28X2X2) or other any other possible combination (for example two blocks of 28 MHz point-multipoint and 8 blocks of 7 MHz multipoint-point).
The decision can be found on the Italian Communications Authority web site at: http://www.agcom.it/eng/pub_cons.htm).
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