Fujikura Subsidiary AFL Opens First UK Site to Make New Fibre Cable

AFL, a subsidiary of Fujikura in Japan, has today officially opened a new facility in Swindon (Wiltshire) that will become their first factory in the UK and Europe to produce a “new” type of fibre optic broadband cable, which is being used by network operators like Openreach (BT) to support their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) rollout.

The huge new manufacturing facility, which will also help to boost local jobs and skills, somewhat reflects the massive appetite for fibre optic cable in the UK market, where around a hundred network operators are busy building new FTTP networks at various different scales.

The new site in Swindon will also mark the start of commercial production for Fujikura’s new Air Blown Wrapping Tube Cable (AB-WTC) using SpiderWeb Ribbon® (SWR®) fibre technology in the UK, which is something that Openreach began using back in 2019 (details here).

Paul Bennett, General Manager of AFL in Swindon, said:

“This new cable technology allows us to manufacture high fibre count, high density fibre optic cables that are much quicker to install than conventional fibre optic cables. This technology is an exciting innovation in the industry; we are delighted that we will now be producing it in the UK, at our Swindon plant, where we have a strong, skilled workforce, and a long manufacturing history.

AFL’s further investment in Swindon is not only significant for network rollouts and upgrades, but because we’ve added state-of-the-art equipment, also enables us to increase cable production.”

The fibre optic cables produced at their new facility on Radway Road will be supplied to both UK and European network infrastructure projects.