Italy’s Ministry of Economic Development (Ministero dello sviluppo economico, MISE) has selected companies to carry out pre-commercial trials of 5G technology using spectrum in the 3.6GHz-3.8GHz range in five cities. Vodafone Italia was chosen to carry out the tests in Milan (Area 1), Wind and Open Fiber were selected for Prato and L’Aquila (Area 2) and Telecom Italia, Fastweb and Huawei will run the trials in Bari and Matera (Area 3). The operators now have until 19 September to submit their final design proposals to the ministry, whilst the ministry is scheduled to issue provisional authorisations to use the aforementioned spectrum by 22 September. The process forms part of the Italian government’s efforts to implement the EU’s 5G action plan for 2020, which includes identifying at least one city for 5G testing by 2018 and having a network in place by 2020.