NBN Co partners with Fujitsu for Greenfields

NBN Co has forgone the establishment of a panel of providers to install fibre to new developments, instead contracting Fujitsu Australia to deliver the infrastructure to housing estates with over 100 premises.

Under the deal, estimated to be worth $100 million for the first 12 months alone, Fujitsu and will manage the design, construction and associated works for the deployment of fibre to new developments.

An NBN Co spokesperson said the company was “satisfied” that Fujitsu and ServiceStream would have the necessary workforce capacity and expertise to deliver current and foreseeable needs in new developments.

“If we need additional capacity in the future, we can consider further arrangements at that time,” the spokesperson said.

According to NBN Co chief executive, Mike Quigley, NBN Co had received approximately 1,480 applications from developers of new estates since being delegated responsibility for greenfields on 1 January 2011. The proposals represented around 133,000 premises.

The number of applications fell short of Quigley’s initial estimation of 2000 applications during January, however the number of homes in the project nearly doubled from the initial 70,000 indicated by the wholesaler.

“These applications are submitted for individual stages of developments, but due to different construction timeframes and housing demand, fibre deployment will be spread over a period of up to three years,” he said in a statement. “NBN Co will work with developers to deploy fibre as and when it is needed.”

Fujitsu has itself sub-contracted telco services company ServiceStream (ASX:SSM) to aid construction. The latter company estimated its own value to be worth $35 million over the year-long contract, which has an option to extend a further year.

ServiceStream also recently signed a deal with NBN Co to operate the National Broadband Network wholesaler’s support call centre.

The contract follows an extensive tender process starting in December 2010 prior to which the Federal Government slated NBN Co to be the provider of fibre to all broadacre developments, infill developments where the company already has NBN fibre in service and newly approved infill developments of 100 or more premises. Telstra was charged with delivering infrastructure and services for infill developments of less than 100 premises.

In January the company overseeing the rollout of the NBN called for applications from housing developers for fibre installation at housing estates of over 100 premises, with deployment of the technology expected to commence from the end of February.

Follow Chloe Herrick on Twitter: @chloe_CW

Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU

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