The Communications Ministry in Italy on Thursday officially launched an auction for WiMAX spectrum licenses in that country. Three licenses are up for bidding, covering the 3.4-3.6Ghz spectrum.

These licenses, Reuters said in a Thursday report, will be good for 15 years, and carriers will be able to renew but not sell the licenses.

WiMAX is a medium-range wireless technology that uses radio frequency to transmit data over the air. The main advantage of the technology for carriers is low operational costs, since it requires fewer base stations than WiFi to create a network, Reuters said.

Sale of WiMAX (News - Alert) licenses in Italy is expected to raise between 100 million and 200 million Euros ($141.6-$283 million) for the country’s government, Reuters said. This seems like a lot, but its considerably less than billions raised by 3G mobile phone licenses auctioned off at the height of the high-tech boom.

Potential bidders include Tiscali (an Internet service provider), Fastweb (a broadband operator) and Telecom Italia (News - Alert) (the Italian telecom giant), according to Reuters.

Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.