Gigaclear Call for Openreach Changes to Bring Gigabit Broadband to UK Rural Areas

Abingdon-based alternative broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has built a full fibre (FTTP) network across 612,000 premises in rural parts of England (inc. 160,000 customers), has responded to Openreach’s recent threat to scale-back their own fibre roll-out (here) by calling for “fair regulation between the incumbent and altnets to level the playing field“.

Just to recap. Last week saw Openreach’s CEO, Clive Selley, warn both the Government and Ofcom that he was “going to hold fire” on seeking approval for the final phase of the operator’s plan to go beyond their current 25 million premises target for December 2026 (i.e. the goal to expand FTTP up to 30 million premises by 2030); at least until the regulatory and tax environment showed themselves to be favourable.

At this stage, it’s not known whether Openreach will actually scale-back their infrastructure deployment plans. But Selley’s warning was clearly issued with a view to the threat from both rising business rates and Ofcom’s forthcoming market review (i.e. the desire for softer regulation given today’s more competitive environment). However, any reduction in their deployment would naturally hit rural areas the hardest, since those are often the last to benefit from such upgrades.

The CEO of rival provider Gigaclear, Nathan Rundle, has now hit back and warned that the digital divide between rural and urban areas was now at risk of widening “significantly without greater collaboration across the industry“.

Gigaclear CEO, Nathan Rundle, said:

“We have already made substantial headway in bringing full-fibre connectivity to rural homes and businesses that otherwise would have been forgotten – but the job is not done and we will continue to champion the need for greater collaboration and a level playing field that will help ensure the regulatory environment remains attractive for investors. This is how we will connect these hard-to-reach rural homes and businesses and support the Government in reaching their 2032 target of achieving nationwide gigabit coverage for 99% of properties.”

Gigaclear has been providing ultrafast full fibre broadband to the hardest to reach rural areas for the last 15 years, with over 600,000 homes and businesses able to access our network and serving over 160,000 customers. This includes many Building Digital UK communities in hard to reach areas, some of which are currently in progress, in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. What these underserved rural communities need now is constructive collaboration between the regulator, the incumbent and altnets.”

The caveat is that some of what they’re seeking naturally reflects Gigaclear’s own vested interests. The provider is calling upon Ofcom and Openreach to use mechanisms enabled by the Communications Act 2003 (Sections 93A & 93B) to bring about “meaningful digital transformation in rural areas … by enabling altnets to collaborate with incumbents, rather than being sidelined, the rollout can be accelerated, and duplication minimised“.

As highlighted in their Telecoms Access Review (TAR) 2026-2031 consultation response, Gigaclear again urges the regulator and industry to level the playing field and focus on:

• Recognition of altnet coverage in determining when copper switch-off (stop-sell) can be triggered for incumbents, ensuring we assess full-fibre progress collectively, not just by one provider.
• Prioritisation of the hardest-to-reach rural geographies (Area 3), with a co-ordinated framework where Openreach agrees not to over-build in those zones for a defined period, giving altnets the chance to serve customers without duplication. This is important as many rural areas cannot support multiple competing FTTP networks. Without a clear regulatory framework the investment case is damaged and inconsistent statements from the incumbent only add to this. 
• PIA Pricing – Gigaclear stand ready to work with the Government, the Regulator and the Incumbent on this area. Gigaclear highlight that whilst altnets can make use of existing infrastructure through Openreach’s PIA products, evidence suggests that PIA users make a disproportionately large contribution towards covering the cost of Openreach’s passive infrastructure. We would encourage all stakeholders to support the case for a more level playing field – one that would promote collaboration and lead to a sustainable relationship between the incumbent and altnet providers.

Gigaclear itself currently holds an aspiration to extend their network coverage to 1 million premises, although like other operators they’ve recently had to scale-back their own build plans and cut jobs, due to the pressures from high interest rates, rising build costs and a highly competitive environment (here and here).

Suffice to say that anything which might give them extra protection is something that investors would no doubt welcome, albeit while potentially inhibiting Openreach’s natural competitive flexibility to build where they want with their own money. Once again, Ofcom will have a difficult balancing act to perform.