KDDI has selected Fujitsu as an infrastructure partner for the deployment of its US$1.3 billion mobile WiMAX network in Japan. The mobile operator has formed a joint venture with Intel Capital, East Japan Railway Company, Kyocera, Daiwa Securities Group, and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi for the launch of a 2.5GHz network that will be operated by a company called UQ Communications (previously known as Wireless Broadband Planning K.K.). According to an Asian report, Samsung was also selected by the Japanese consortium. The group was awarded a national WiMAX license at the end of last year in a beauty contest. KDDI’s venture aims to deploy 19,000 mobile WiMAX base stations nationwide by March 2013, covering 90% of the population. Its goal is to win 5.6 million WiMAX customers by March 2014. Commercial services are expected to start in the summer of 2009.

Meanwhile, Indian service provider Tata Communications today outlined plans to deploy WiMAX networks in 110 cities for enterprise use, and 15 cities for retail broadband use, by the end of 2008. The company has signed a deal with infrastructure partner Telsima to expand its current combined base of 5000 enterprise and retail customers in ten cities to 200,000 customers in the retail segment alone by end-2009. Tata claims its existing network is already the world’s largest WiMAX deployment.