Liberty Global is the latest operator to hold hands with a private equity firm to create a 50:50 joint venture dedicated to deploying FTTH in Europe. Through its Liberty Global Ventures arm, the company has partnered with InfraVia Capital Partners, initially on a project that is “assessing opportunities” for FTTH networks in Germany, before committing to any actual digging. Effectively, the venture marks Liberty Global’s reentrance into the German market, two years after it sold the Unitymedia cable TV business to Vodafone. Without striking a deal with the devil (in Liberty Global’s view, as a rival), it would likely not have been able to secure the funds or regulatory approval to form this independent FTTH business. Allowing Vodafone to become…