Fujitsu has unveiled plans to create its own fibre network in rural Britain.
The company said it would bring 1Gbit/sec fibre access to five million homes in rural areas, making use of BT Openreach's ducts and telegraph poles to roll out the network.
"Deployment across a wide range of underground and overhead infrastructure means that the Fujitsu network architecture is entirely independent of existing street cabinets," Fujitsu said. "This model enables public investment to be targeted in areas where broadband provision is poorest."
Fujitsu noted that the network depended on Ofcom's new rules requiring BT to share access to such infrastructure. The ISP has recently been criticised for setting access prices too high, however.
The network will offer fibre to the premise (FTTP), not just to the cabinet, in the "majority" of areas, Fujitsu said. Areas that do get FTTP will get 1Gbit/sec "from day one" - and be able to go up to 10Gbits/sec in the future, Fujitsu said.
Fujitsu will wholesale access to the network to any ISP, but Virgin Media and TalkTalk have already signed on.
Fujitsu is set to start work on the network "soon" but said it could be between three and five years before its fully up and running.
A spokesperson for Fujitsu said the company couldn't yet release which areas would be covered, but said it was targeting places "with bad connections to broadband" at the moment.
The company said it was looking to offer an "innovative alternative" to BT's own wholesaling service, Openreach.
“There is a unique opportunity for the UK to re-establish itself as a world leader by having the world’s most advanced fibre network," said Fujitsu UK's CEO Duncan Tait.
"If done correctly this can be a key vehicle to accelerate recovery in the UK and bring genuine choice to generations of communities starved of participating fully in the UK economy," he said. "We believe our approach, in collaboration with these major industry leaders, will provide a future-proofed network for at least the next 20 to 30 years.”
