Fujitsu plows ahead with rural broadband network in U.K.

Although there are still questions about cost and availability, Fujitsu's (OTC: FJTSY.PK) planned deployment of a fiber-based network to 5 million rural homes in the U.K. could offer up a lesson in can-do for U.S. regulators and providers still thrashing out the details of their own National Broadband Plan.

In the U.K., Fujitsu is building the fiber network with some help from the competition, BT (NYSE: BT), which must provide access to its ducts and poles, thus making deployment faster and cheaper. The vendor also has partners--Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) for technology and Virgin Media (Nasdaq: VMED) and TalkTalk (LSE: TALK)as wholesale service providers.

Fujitsu won't go forward without government funding. It hopes to get a lion's share of money set aside by the government for rural broadband, because it is "is crucial to the building of this network," a BBC report noted. Still, that report concludes, "Fujitsu has gone a long way to providing an answer for the rural broadband campaigners, the government, the ISPs wanting a competitive fiber wholesaler ... (and) all we need now is a bit more detail on how it all adds up."

For more:
- the BBC has this story

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