Alcatel, a French telecommunications equipment maker, and US based sillicon giant Intel announced an agreement to try and make WiMAX compete with GSM and 3G. The two companies hope to have something out to market in the second half of 2005.

Like Wi-Fi, WiMAX allows for wireless connections to the Internet, but boasts speeds of up to 70 megabites per second, or 35 times faster than the most advanced ASDL lines currently available in France.

The new standard, technically known as 802.16, also has a range of up to 45 kilometers (28 miles), compared to a few dozen meters for Wi-Fi.