Fujitsu wants to get back into the wireless race in North America by being a major U.S. player in the race to build high speed wireless broadband WiMax networks.

The Japanese company, which is a big manufacturer of cell phones and infrastructure equipment such as base stations, once developed analog handsets for the North American market only to sell out of that business about 12 years ago. The company felt that the U.S. market was highly competitive and that margins on cell phones were too low. Better to focus its efforts where it had the best relationships: in Asia, where it had strong partnerships with carriers such as Japan’s NTT DoCoMo (nyse: DCM - news - people ) cand KDDI.

But now, Fujitsu wants back into the North American wireless market, and James Hintze, a senior vice president at Fujitsu Network Communications, says that WiMax technology will be the company’s ticket. WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a high capacity IP-based technology that can be deployed as a new network or as an overlay to existing 2G and 3G wireless technologies. It promises to be the fastest network yet, providing fixed and mobile broadband service and can deliver up to 40 megabits per second per channel up to 30 miles away from a base station. That’s enough bandwidth to support hundreds of business with T-1 speed connectivity and thousands of residences with DSL speed connectivity.
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