Three global telecom firms Huawei, Telsima and Alvarion emerged as front runner for bid order of BSNL's WiMax equipment. The winners are expected to be announced next week, enabling launch of much awaited Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) services by state owned telecom giant.

Other telecom companies such as ZTE and Alactel-Lucent are also in the race. However, they have to face stiff competition from foreign telecom players on the lowest price (L1) issue.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has reserved amount of over $1 billion to roll out WiMax service, a telecommunication technology for wireless transmission of data from one point to another. The technology, based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, provides broadband internet downloading speed of 72 Mbit/s without any cable connection. The company is facing stiff competition from private telecommunication companies, providing internet broadband connectivity through wireless links.

The state run company aims to extend WiMax services across all major towns of country in the coming financial year. It is already providing the services, under the 2.5-GHz band, in Gujarat with the help of US-based Soma Networks solutions.

A BSNL executive said, "We are aiming for 50,000 connections in each state in 2008, 500,000 in each state by 2010."