Wellington company FX Networks has won a tender to take over “Karen”, the fibre optic broadband network that links universities and Crown Research Institutes.

The contract is currently held by TelstraClear, which has operated Karen (the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network) since it was originally launched in 2006 on the back of a $43 million grant from the Labour government.

FX will take over the 10Gbit/s network in December.

Terms of the three-year deal have not been disclosed, but tender documents indicate it is in the region of $6 million.

Now, granted, Vodafone’s spin doctors don’t have quite the practice of Telecom’s at dealing with network outages.

But when intermittent problems hit 16 Vodafone cellsites around the Bay of Plenty on Saturday, it was still a bit quick to point the finger.

A spokesman immediately blamed a routine-upgrade-gone-wrong by fibre contractor FX Networks.

Telecom, Vodafone and a raft of broadband players have clubbed together to form a new body called the Telecommunications Industry Group (TIG), giving telcos an independent voice outside the government-mandated Telecommunciations Carriers Forum.