New Delhi, Nov 28: In a move that raises the bar in wireless Internet and mobile telephony in India, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is tying up with the world’s largest chipmaker, Intel, to deploy the country’s first wireless broadband and telecom service on WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access). Sources said BSNL would sign a generic technology agreement with Intel very shortly.

WiMAX is considered the biggest threat to pure-play mobile telephony. Its invention has forced mobile service providers worldwide to start trials on marrying their GSM/3G networks with WiMAX technology. Almost 30 times faster than 3G, WiMAX can support a speed of up to 70 mbps as against 3G, which supports only 380 kbps to 2 mbps.

Countries like the US are aggressively deploying WiMAX technology with service providers like Sprint, originally a CDMA player, migrating to WiMAX. Motorola already offers WiMAX handsets and global vendors like Alcatel and Lucent are developing equipment for...