UK rural communities to get high speed Internet

Jamie Hinks
April 13, 2011
2 Comments

UK rural locationThe USA may be more interested in the important debate on net neutrality. On the other side of the ocean in the UK all the news is of the amount of new high-speed broadband that is being constantly rolled out for all members of the population.

BT, it seems, isn’t sitting as pretty as it was this time last week as Japanese technology company Fujitsu has announced plans to roll out superfast broadband to rural areas of the country – using BT ducts and poles.

The ducts and poles were the last point of argument for the Internet Service Providers (ISP) and BT, as they believed the telecoms business was charging too much. It now seems like Fujitsu are more than happy to pay.

Andy Stevenson, director of network solutions at Fujitsu, said, “Assuming we are successful we would hope to add our first retail customer in 2012 and reach 5 million in three to five years.”

Fujitsu has, however, asked the government for £500m to help implement the plan, which it can only be assumed is to be spent on the aforementioned BT ducts and poles.

Virgin Media and TalkTalk has already confirmed that they plan to use the technology provided by Fujitsu to reach rural communities. BT and other providers are also likely to follow suit as the UK continues to strive to become one of the most technology advanced when it comes to high-speed Internet access and the best in Europe by 2015.

In terms of the online gaming industry, upgrading the Internet definitely isn’t a bad thing and will mean that rural locations will have better access to sites.

It just goes to show what can be achieved when some of these guys actually begin to work together and stop arguing – progress.

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Tags: Article, broadband, Fujitsu, UK
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  • Craig

    I wonder how UK esp. London became the “iGaming capital” of the world wherein record shows that it has one of the SLOWEST internet in the developed world.

    Logical reason would be that the iGaming industry doesn't use that much of a bandwidth though? IMHO.

    • http://CalvinAyre.com Calvin Ayre

      Actually the reason most of the global industry power players have major offices in London is the gaming laws and what a great place London is to live. Most of the operators make the majority of their money outside the UK.