UPDATED: Swedish company muscles in on Telecom incumbent Alcatel Lucent's turf, and edges out the PM’s Chinese favourite.

US networking giant Cisco has thrown its weight behind the New Zealand Regional Fibre Group, an alliance of power, line and fibre companies assembled at Vector’s initiative to counter criticism that a regional fibre model could become technologically fragmented.

As Vodafone NZ completes its 3G network today, and Telecom braces for its 3G launch tomorrow, our cousins in the northern hemisphere are rolling out commercial 4G/LTE networks - which Sweden’s Ericsson is pitching as the answer for New Zealand’s rural broadband gap.