Fujitsu to Roll Out Superfast Broadband to Rural Areas in the UK?
In April 2011, Fujitsu announced plans to work with several UK ISPs, including Virgin Media and TalkTalk, and Cisco, to deliver a superfast fibre-optic broadband network that will reach five million homes in rural areas.
The announcement was somewhat bizarre, as it did not contain any specifics about what is planned in terms of:
- which areas of the country would be targeted
- specific timescales.
A day after the announcement, ISPreview reported that Fujitsu aims to have its first customer in 2012, with 5 million customers being reached in three to five years.
Currently, BT is being forced (by the industry regular Ofcom) to open up its ducts and poles to third parties, but there is major disagreement between ISPs and BT on BT’s proposals to charge for access. As it is likely that much of the Fujitsu network would be built on BT’s infrastructure, such as underground ducting and phone poles, Fujitsu clearly wants to force BT to substantially reduce its access charges.
Fujitsu claims that the build of a new superfast, fibre optic broadband network represents an innovative alternative to BT Openreach and provides an opportunity for any community or local authority looking to access a proportion of the £530 million earmarked by the UK Government to drive investment in superfast broadband in rural communities.
So, the project relies on being able to access a significant portion of the Government’s fund for rural broadband AND BT reducing significantly its charges for access to its ducts and poles.
Interestingly, the announcement states that, in the vast majority of areas, Fujitsu will run fibre optic cabling directly to the home (FTTH), rather than to the local street cabinet. As a result, the Fujitsu network will be one gigabit (1Gbps) symmetric capable from day one with the potential to go to 10Gbps and beyond. This sounds rather exciting.
While the announcement gives no confidence that rural areas such as Spaldwick will get superfast broadband in the foreseeable future, it’s a step in the right direction. If there is sufficient interest in rural superfast broadband from companies beyond BT, it may even encourage BT to take rural superfast broadband much more seriously than it has to date. As BT’s ambition for superfast broadband has been rather pathetic to say the least, we support any attempts to make the UK competitive with other countries.
In its International Communications Market Report, published in December 2010, Ofcom reported that the UK was equal last in terms of household penetration of superfast broadband out of the 13 countries it analysed. Superfast broadband penetration in Japan was 172 times higher than in the UK.
