UPD PostOffice Moves Broadband Platform from BT to Fujitsu and TalkTalk UK

The Post Office has chosen to scrap its limited BTWholesale and Logica based managed broadband and phone platform, which is still stuck on old ‘up to’ 8Mbps ADSL technology, in favour of a huge new and potentially more competitive unbundled (LLU) solution delivered by Fujitsu and rival ISP TalkTalk.

Furthermore Capita has also been brought in to help provide the customer contact centre, with MDS for advanced consumer billing and settlement solutions. This change should allow the PostOffice to launch a new range of more modern ADSL2+ (up to 20-24Mbps) based packages, which could be expanded to include superfast broadband (FTTC) a little further down the road.

Dido Harding, CEO of the TalkTalk Group, said:

“We’re very proud of the Wholesale opportunities we offer to our strategic partners and are delighted to be working with the Post Office and Fujitsu to provide next-generation broadband and telephony services in line with our long term strategy for leveraging the scale of our network and growing TalkTalk Business. Our super-fast, highly resilient network reaches over 92% of the population in the UK enabling the Post Office to offer great value products to more people, more of the time.”

Duncan Tait, CEO of Fujitsu UK & Ireland, added:

“As a partner to the Post Office since 1996, we listened carefully to their requirements and aspirations and worked with the customer to leverage Fujitsu’s IT and telecommunications innovation with the best in class partners in the UK market. Fujitsu is very excited to be involved in this project.”

A related report on ComputerWorldUK suggests that the new five-year contract could be worth as much as £500m, which is big enough to suggest that the PostOffice are serious about future growth and possibly even taking on some of the big boys.

Nobody spends half a billion without having some serious ambition to back it up. To put this into some perspective, Tiscali sold its broadband service to TalkTalk for roughly half that amount (£236m) and they were one of the markets largest ISPs. The deal is said to be much more significant than a mere network management contract and at that price we’d agree.

Existing customers can expect to be migrated onto the new platform in due course, although it’s still too early to know how the service itself will change and when this will take place. Meanwhile BT’s apparent inability to provide the PostOffice with a viable and more flexible alternative (it’s four-year agreement with PO was worth £750m) could cost the country’s largest provider.

UPDATE 26th May 2012

Some other reports suggest that the PO currently serves around 500,000 customers, although it’s unclear whether or not they are all broadband users.