The multinational Japanese computer hardware and IT services company, Fujitsu, is said to be "heavily involved" with the UK governments recently announced £2bn tender for a new national framework agreement to help it bring superfast broadband (25Mbps+) ISP services to 90% of "people in each local authority area" by 2015.

The framework agreement, which is worth between £750m and £2bn +vat, was first announced by the governments Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) office last week (here). The tender called for 12 qualified suppliers to help design, build, implement and operate wholesale broadband networks around the country.

Meanwhile Fujitsu first announced plans to develop its own 1Gbps capable superfast Fibre-to-the-Home ( FTTH ) based broadband network in April (here), which seeks to reach 5 Million homes in rural areas by 2016 and act as an alternative to BT's national platform. The project is supported by Virgin Media , TalkTalk and Cisco but has of late been somewhat quiet.

At the time Fujitsu said that its Open Access Wholesale Network would need government money to get started. The plan is also dependent upon Ofcom being able to successfully impose its regulatory remedy upon BTOpenreach, which would give Fujitsu crucial access to BT's underground cable ducts and telegraph poles (Physical Infrastructure Access) on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" terms (i.e. at lower prices).


Critics of the £2bn Fujitsu project have suggested that its chances of success are low due to a heavy dependence upon both public funds and BT being forced by Ofcom to lower their PIA prices, which is easier said than done. BT is supposed to launch its final PIA product this summer, although nobody would be surprised if that slipped into the autumn or winter months.

The new BDUK tender, which is coincidentally also valued at up to £2bn, is certainly one way to test Fujitsu's commitment. Fujitsu itself chose not to comment, which had us a little worried (not being involved could mean almost certain death for their project), although Virgin Media informed us it was in fact "heavily involved in the BDUK process".

BDUK's tender should at least give Fujitsu some additional ammunition to use in its bargaining with BT and Ofcom over access to the operator's cable ducts. At this stage though the outcome is still far from certain, but we hope they succeed.

UPDATE 8th July 2011

We forgot to mention that Virgin Media has also confirmed its intention to use Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) technology via Fujitsu's network. This will allow the operator to deploy its existing cable-based services over the same platform and thus extend their coverage, which was surely already a foregone conclusion.