Days after Liberty Global awarded CommScope a huge contract upgrade to develop and deploy its Remote MAC-PHY Device Node platform in Europe, the pan-European operator has established a fiber joint venture. This is all the testimony we need to confirm that Project Lightning, the UK-based fiber to the home (FTTH) initiative, has been grossly underfunded and overhyped. Liberty’s latest U-turn will see the operator pool funds with Telefónica subsidiary S.L.U (leveraging Virgin Media’s recent merger with Telefónica’s O2 to form VMO2 in the UK), forming a JV in which Liberty and Telefónica will each own 25%, while infrastructure investment firm InfraVia Capital Partners will be the majority owner with 50%. InfraVia’s involvement is proof that attempting to create a FTTH…