Hints of a Bidder Shortlist for £165m N.Ireland Broadband Project

BT (Openreach), ISP Fibrus and private investment firm Granahan McCourt Capital (GMC) have all reportedly been linked with bids for Northern Ireland’s £165m Project Stratum, which aims to ensure that most of the 98,000 premises still awaiting access to “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) can get it.

At present a respectable 25% of premises in Northern Ireland (Ofcom’s May 2019 data) can already access a gigabit-capable “full fibre” network (up from 16% in January 2019) – the highest coverage of any devolved region within the UK – but most of that is as a result of private investment from Openreach (BT) and Virgin Media. Meanwhile just 90% have access to speeds of 30Mbps+, which is the lowest coverage of any devolved region.

The procurement process for suppliers began in July 2019 (here) and any future contracts under Project Stratum are widely expected to focus on fostering more full fibre (FTTP) deployments for predominantly rural communities, which would be in keeping with current UK Government policy.

We had been expecting an update on this project in time for the end of summer but sadly one never arrived. Nevertheless a new report in the Irish Times has named Granahan McCourt as one of the alleged “lead bidders” in the process, which is also believed to include BT and relative newcomer Fibrus.

A Spokesperson for N.I’s Department of the Economy said:

“The contracting authority is not in a position to provide a list of the shortlisted companies at this stage as we are currently mid-procurement and still in a tender process for Project Stratum. All information is commercially sensitive until the procurement process is complete and the contract is awarded to a successful contractor.”

At this point nobody will be surprised to see BT on the list, while the inclusion of Fibrus makes sense given their strong backing and plan to invest £100m+ over the next 5 years on a local FTTP build. By comparison Granahan McCourt is an unfamiliar name, although they’re the Irish Government’s preferred bidder for Ireland’s €3bn National Broadband Plan (NBP) and so should be taken seriously.

Northern Ireland’s Department for the Economy (DfE) now expects to announce a contract award sometime during Spring 2020. We should remind readers that the majority of funding for this project stems from a 2017 deal between the Conservative UK government and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to secure the support of their MPs, which included a commitment of £150m to “help provide ultra-fast broadband” across N.I.