Hyderabad: The Public sector telecomm major, BSNL’s Wi-Max rollout, which is planned later in 2008, will include a big part of rural play, and will probably integrate a key educational component.

The prospering bidder is likely to be permitted to connect about 40,000 odd primary plus secondary schools with wireless broadband throughout the country.

According to BSNL sources, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) has already been signed between DoT and the HRD department.

The informants also said that the public sector telecommunication companies have already commenced a pilot project crosswise eight cities, with 10-11 companies having expressed interest in supplying equipment for the said project.

A declaration, during last week, made by Kuldeep Goyal, BSNL chairman and managing director that the company would shortly demand expressions of interest (EoI) for distributing 2 million WiMax lines, in about a week’s time.

The size of the order is projected at about Rs 2,000 crore, and is looking to cover approx 25,000 villages within a year’s time.

It would also be one of the world’s largest tender proposals for WiMax equipment procurement and deployment across this wide a scale, and would include wiring up about 50,000 as well as internet kiosks all through India.

BSNL is expected to perk up its subsisting tower system for WiMax base stations. Telecomm majors such as Reliance, VSNL, Bharti Televentures, BSNL and Aircel would roll out limited WiMax networks, in company with Internet service suppliers like Sify. Others like Tata Teleservices are examining networks at various places.

Industrial sources point out that without clarity on the government’s broadband plan and on the WiMax range, BSNL will most probably be permitted to begin services on a 2.5 GHz spectrum, with a view to keep away from project delays.

Due to low broadband access, and the government having set a target of 20 million subscribers by 2010, WiMax is seen by some as the only viable option to achieve the planned numbers.