Six years into its painfully slow emergence into the telecommunications mainstream, WiMAX, a wireless broadband technology with which VCs have had a fitful relationship, seems to be picking up steam among investors again.

The beneficiaries of the latest round of VC support are DigitalBridge, an Auburn, Virginia-based WiMAX service provider, which received $20 million in funding; and Enforta, a Moscow-based operator which on Wednesday said it got $40 million.

VCs have invested several billion dollars in about two dozen WiMAX chip and network device makers and a small number of service providers led by Clearwire, perhaps the largest WiMAX carrier in the world based on subscriber count.

Clearwire, which has about 350,000 subscribers in the U.S., absorbed a whopping $1.25 billion in venture funding before going public in March 2007.

That spending spree was followed by a relative drought in the last year as the rapid emergence of cellular broadband and meshed WiFi caused VCs to hedge their bets.

While Clearwire aims for nationwide coverage in the U.S. and broad deployment in Europe, both DigitalBridge and Enforta possess slightly more modest aspirations.

Two-year-old DigitalBridge is targeting smaller towns that are underserved by DSL and cable modem access providers in a limited number of U.S. states, mostly in the midwestern United States.

"We consider ourselves part of the Sprint and Clearwire ecosystem so we will not build in any of the markets they are going into," said Kelley Dunne, CEO of DigitalBridge.

Sprint Nextel is in the early stages of deploying Xohm, its nationwide WiMAX network.

Sprint and Clearwire in July announced  a plan to combine their efforts and build a single nationwide WiMAX network, rather than two.

That deal was scuttled four months later, but analyst Tim Farrar, president of Telecom Media and Finance Associates, believes that the Sprint/Clearwire deal will be revisited.

"The WiMAX market needs for something to happen on that scale and there are people who are betting that those two will iron out their differences and come together in some way," he said.

Rural demand for broadband is high, Mr. Farrar said, and that is the main reason why investors, even in this tough capital market, are investing in smaller carriers focused on rural areas and developing countries.

DigitalBridge has taken a total of $31 million in two rounds of funding from Paladin Capital Group, which led the latest round, along with Redshift Ventures,CNF Investments, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners.

Enforta, which sells Internet, phone' and VPN services in 25 Russian cities, said it will use its latest funding to expand its coverage to 65 of Russia's largest cities by the end of 2008.

Enforta will have no shortage of rivals in Russia. Three major carriers have announced their intention to deploy WiMAX and at least three startup carriers are in various stages of building WiMAX networks.

The $40 million investment round was led by U.S.-based VC Bessemer Venture Partners. The investment was Bessemer's first in Russia.

Baring Vostok Capital Partners, Sumitomo Corp., and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development were Enforta's other investors.