BARCELONA (WiMAX Day). By the end of this year, the region of Catalonia in Spain will have deployed 189 WiMAX base stations for its Rural Broadband project. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Administration, the WiMAX network provides broadband access to some 1,962 rural villages. To date, the government has invested €20 million EUR in the project which is administered by the Spanish telecommunications company Iberbanda. The first phase of this network has covered rural and mountainous regional of Catalonia, in northeast Spain. Further expansion is intended to reach Barcelona and the central region. It is estimated that by the end of 2008 the network will reach 2,679 towns.