Ciao, Wimax! The Italian government sells (in auction) 35 licenses for a record of €136.3 million.

Auctions for WiMax in France raised €125.8 million and in Germany €56.1 million. But the big surprise was who actually bought the licenses…

Little-known AriaDSL SpA secured licenses in all Italian regions for a total of €47.5 million. The company is reportedly controlled by Israeli billionaire David Gilo, founder of Vyyo, a company in Georgia (USA) selling wireless high-speed data equipment and connections.

AFT SpA, a company providing WiFi hotspots around Italy, paid €34.4 million for licenses in all Italian regions and became the second-biggest spender.

Surprisingly Telecom Italia only took up licenses in central and southern Italy for a humble €13.8 million.

And Berlusconi's Mediaset media group, Wind and Fastweb all pulled out during the auction bidding..

WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) 3.5GHz radio frequencies were previously used for military communications. Now they can be a solution to the digital divide in Italy, and encourage smaller companies to use internet. At least 7.5% (4.2 million) of Italians remain cut off from broadband access.

WiMax delivers speeds of 3M bits to 5M bits per second for downloads and 1M bits to 1.5M bits for uploads across rural and mountainous areas.

The WiMax auction in France raised €125.8 million and in Germany €56.1 million.