Italian ISP Tiscali has announced its intention to acquire the voice and broadband assets of Pipex Communications for around £210m, subject to Pipex shareholder approval and clearance by the UK Office of Fair Trading.

Further details of the acquisition have not yet been released, but Pipex looks likely to hang on to its hosting business and its mobile broadband arm, Pipex Wireless.

Pipex has around one million customers, 100,000 of which are SME businesses, 570,000 broadband customers.

Pipex Wireless has been running trials of WiMax in Stratford-upon-Avon and Milton Keynes in conjunction with Intel and WiMAx kit provider Airspan Networks. Airspan's kit uses Intel's WiMax chipset, Rosedale and Airspan announced on 10 July that it had been awarded the contract to supply kit to Pipex Wireless for covering the Manchester region.

The Pipex Wireless website outlines their strategy, "To offer hybrid services incorporating established services such as Wi-Fi at the access level with backhaul connectivity being provided via WiMAX."