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Living in country this seems a good thing but there still a feeling of I believe it when I see it. I do not understand the business model to make it pay.

If they doing this so they open up smaller towns to fibre and happen to connect up those homes inbetween it makes sense. But there again what do they mean by "rural" - a large village or town of 2000 homes or a small hamlet of 20 homes.

Lets hope it means that people in the country can have a communication system fit for this century. Farmers need boardband for the tracking of animals, children need it as schools use online tools and others use it to run their businesses.

BT is inverting over 2.5 billion to improve it's broadband across the country. My question is how much are Virgin and Fujitsu going to pay? or do they just want to grab a government subsidy?

BT opened access to their pole, duct and cable network before any Ofcom ruling.

Also if Virgin are so keen to use BT ducts, cables and poles why have they not opened their network to other providers?

It seems they want lots from everyone else but bring little to the party.

ISPreview indicates that Fujitsu maybe investing around two billion, they offer no source for this.

It is certainly an improvement upon the BT offer which also included a grab for government cash. Perhaps a little competition would do BR good. Even if figures quoted indicate eighty percent of the network would be reliant upon BT infrastructure.

Already there is speculation of the negative impact upon BT returns. As yet there is scant detail in the Fujitsu proposal other than a nice PR announcement. Undoubtedly they are seeking to exert pressure on Ofcom. The result of which remains to be seen.

With such uncertainties and no real details it is hard to get excited about the announcement just yet.

myibbcid - £2 billion. It's in the blog.

And how does opening up Virgin's stuff help? I live a good few miles away from their cable. Giving BT that is not going to do anything to get decent broadband to me. And doesn't BT have a connect to every Virgin home already because it used to be the GPO?

Apologies myibbcid. I meant to address that to mackrec.

Presumably the "final third" simply becomes "the final sixth" if they're doing 5m homes and they're all in the final third ?

The business model can work if they charge enough, if people pay that and if they take the long view on the investment.

After the shambles Fujitsu made of their involvement in the NHS IT projects, if I were the government I would be very wary before giving them any money.

If something appears too good to be true, it usually isn't true.

If Fujitsu can pull this off for just £2bn, it'll prove conclusively how overpriced and slow BT is. No wonder they're not keen.

Having lived with 1mb for the past ten years, watching the rest of the UK fly past me (in terms of speed) It will be a welcome relief to finally catch up though I will reiterate what AndyT said "I'll believe it when I see it".

Give a man 1mbps broadband and he will moan he doesn't have 8, give him 8mbps and he will moan he doesn’t have 20, give him 20mbps and he will moan he doesn’t have 100………

Exactly at what point will people be happy because even if Mr Smith at number 22 has 1gbps he will only complain when Mr Jones at number 23 says he has 1.01gbps

BT is a byeword for expensive indolence. Anything that help this behemoth, "wake up and smell the coffee" is good. However, I seriously doubt this announcement is anything more than "marketing".

With mobile 3&4G the internet speeds accessible to users will already be enhanced and offer a cheaper option than wiring the countryside as many masts are already in place.

As a major global IT business it is sad Fujitsu has not indicated that they will act as a telco as this would give serious competition to all the current providers. Fujitsu certainly could not be worse than the current bunch of Telcos in terms of service or price.

To No 10 Icarus_5000.

I can't speak for every man but personally I'll stop wanting more when the speed available to me is adequate to run the things that I want to run. E.g. Streaming Iplayer HD. I don't want a particular bandwidth I want an adequate bandwidth. I don't give a monkey's what Mr Jones has, I just want to be able to make use of the services on offer that I would like to have.

I am paying £20 per month for my broadband connection (including line rental), getting about 1.5Mbps, but to be honest I really don't mind paying upto £50 to get the speed increased to 5Mbps or something, the slow speed is really limiting my access to interactive services such as interactive TV

Forget rural, what about areas such as where I live in St. Helens? Suburb of a 50,000 population town, in a metropolitan (i.e. predominantly urban) borough of 150,000+, and BT can't even guarantee 1 meg connection. They suggest we might just get 2 meg on ADSL2+, when they bother to install it. I have a horrible feeling that areas such as ours will fall between the gaps of BT's lacking network and Fujitsu's new one.

I know the focus on super fast (or even just fast) broadband always related to country areas but there are places in towns where it is unavailable too. I live in a development that was build between 10 and 20 years ago (depending on which part you live in) and the fibre network stops at the end of the pre-existing road with no sign of it ever extending to the newer areas. This is, slightly, offset by the fact I get 4M (on average) through the copper wires but that's the fastest I'll ever get being 2Km from the hub.

It isn't just out in the country and small village areas that need to be addressed.