Virgin Media, TalkTalk Use Fujitsu to Bring Fiber to Rural Britain

Fujitsu plans to work in collaboration with Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Cisco to deliver next generation Internet services to five million homes and businesses in rural Britain.? ?The collaboration and subsequent Fujitsu build of a new fiber-optic broadband network is an alternative to BT’s 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.??

The Fujitsu open access wholesale network will be underpinned by Cisco’s technology. Virgin Media and TalkTalk intend to access wholesale products via this network to retail next generation services to customers in remote parts of the UK. The network will also be open to other service providers on wholesale terms.

In the vast majority of areas, Fujitsu will run fiber directly to the home (FTTH), rather than to the local street cabinet. As a result, the Fujitsu network will be 1Gbps symmetric with potential to go to 10 Gbps and beyond.

Deployment across a wide range of underground and overhead infrastructure means that the Fujitsu network architecture is entirely independent of existing street cabinets. The plans rely on the remedy imposed by the regulator Ofcom, on BT Openreach, to provide access to its underground ducts and telegraph poles on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

Speed vs. Customer Service?

In related news, Powernet, a UK business ISP, has released the results of a survey it conducted in January 2011. Powernet commissioned the research from OnePoll, which surveyed 100 UK IT decision-makers.

The survey revealed that while 77 percent of IT decision-makers see a reliable broadband connection as critical to the future of their business, 83 percent don’t believe their provider can meet their future broadband needs. But, despite the ‘race for speed’ currently being conducted by the UK’s biggest ISPs, 45 percent of IT decision-makers said that reliability and customer service are actually more important to them than connection speed.

Price seems to be less of a concern, with businesses seemingly willing to pay for quality. Only 14 percent said price was the most important factor when it came to choosing a broadband provider.