Telecom Italia (NYSE: TI) and Aria have signed an agreement to create a partnership to increase their WiMAX coverage according to a TI press release.  The partnership will allow both companies to provide broadband services to areas that as yet do not have ADSL-based services.

Each company stands to benefit from the services of the other.  Aria will obtain the rights to allocate TI’s 3.5GHz band frequencies that were awarded to TI in the auction process that ended in February 2008.  Aria will offer the frequencies in nine central and southern regions of the country, including Abruzzo, Umbria, Lazio, Molise, Puglia, Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, and Sardini, thereby fulfilling its minimum coverage commitments to the Communications Department of Italy’s Ministry for Economic Development.  Aria will also be able to use TI’s transport network to deploy its own national network.  TI will be able to supply its customers with WiMAX services using Aria’s nationwide “white label” wholesale offering.

TI is Italy’s foremost broadband network, with 36 million subscribers and more than 7 million domestic broadband connections, according to research by Hoover’s.

“The agreement represents an important example that collaboration between telecoms operators can contribute to a further extension of broadband and confirms our attention to the spread of technological innovation throughout the country,” Oscar Cichetti, director of domestic market operations at TI, said.

This partnership indicates Italy’s efforts to spread broadband Internet access to all of its regions.  The Wall Street Journal reports that in a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, undersecretary for telecommunication Paolo Romani said that the Italian government plans to invest EUR1.47 billion in broadband development as an effort to close Italy’s digital divide.  The government’s goal is to ensure that the entire Italian population has access to broadband technology with a speed of two to 20 megabytes, Romani said.  According to an Italian government official, 13% of Italians today do not have broadband coverage.