Hong Kong's PCCW Ltd., which owns 'UK Broadband' and off-shoot ISP 'Now', has revealed further details about its plans to trial a WiMax based broadband wireless service in the UK next year.

Network construction will begin sometime during the first quarter of 2008, while the service itself will initially have capacity for a few thousand users. Decisions will be made about a possible coverage extension during midyear and obviously depends upon its initial success.

To date PCCW's ISP 'Now' has only been able to muster a maximum of 1Mbps on its Wi-Fi based broadband service and they will need to do a lot more for the next WiMax system to be deemed truly competitive. BT’s impending introduction of ‘up to’ 24Mbps ADSL2+ technology during the same period will present added competition.