PCCW set to build UK broadband network

PCCW, the Hong Kong-based telecoms company, is preparing to build a high speed mobile broadband network in the UK and could launch services as soon as 2012.

The company, which is controlled by Richard Li, the Hong Kong tycoon, might be able to steal a march on the UK’s four mobile network operators by constructing Britain’s first significant infrastructure based on a fourth-generation wireless technology called LTE. Richard Li’s father is Li Ka-shing, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong-based conglomerate that owns 3, the UK’s smallest mobile network operator. However, UK Broadband is working on a wholesale business model under which it would enable companies that do not own network infrastructure to provide mobile services to their bandwidth-hungry customers.