Broadband ISP Exascale prep UK wholesale access to on-net and off-network partners

Broadband provider Exascale, which has built their own full fibre (FTTP) network to a few thousand premises in parts of Shropshire (Telford and Wrekin) and also sells packages via other networks (e.g. CityFibre), this week unveiled Exascale Atlas – a new fibre infrastructure management platform – and advanced its Nexus wholesale platform, while also investing in AI-driven network operations.

Firstly, Nexus, Exascale’s previously announced wholesale connectivity and service orchestration platform, is now being developed around TM Forum Open APIs and associated frameworks. The development is intended to create a unified environment through which wholesale partners will be able to access connectivity delivered across Exascale’s own full-fibre infrastructure and its national off-network partners.

Atlas is then intended to complement Nexus by providing greater visibility and operational control over Exascale’s physical fibre infrastructure, supporting network provisioning, asset management, service assurance and engineering workflows. Taken together, both can be used to simplify service delivery, reduce operational complexity, improve customer satisfaction, while aiding organic growth and supporting future acquisitions (M&A).

The last point above reflects the fact that Exascale itself also believes opportunities may arise to acquire smaller altnet operators and integrate their infrastructure and customer bases into the Exascale Group in the future, which is something their new services can support. Network and business integration can be a complex and costly pain, thus simplifying that is a key focus.

Thomas Bibb, CEO of Exascale, said:

“We’ve grown from a small ISP into a vertically integrated ISP and alternative network operator, and more recently into a wholesale aggregator. That journey has given us a unique perspective on the opportunities and operational challenges facing our industry.

As telecommunications operators that have invested heavily in physical fibre infrastructure begin to mature, consolidate or reach the end of their journey through acquisitions and mergers, I think we need to ask ourselves an important question: is simply owning fibre infrastructure still enough to be considered a genuine unique selling point?

When multiple operators can serve the same property or Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), fibre ownership alone becomes less of a differentiator. Owning and operating our own network remains important, but we believe the next competitive battleground will be data, automation and the ability to deliver services seamlessly across multiple operators.

That’s why we’re investing heavily in Exascale Nexus and Exascale Atlas. Nexus will simplify how wholesale customers purchase and manage connectivity across different networks, while Atlas will provide greater control and visibility of our own physical fibre infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence is also becoming increasingly important to how we operate. We’re heavily leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), which we’ve trained and adapted to understand our network, operational processes and common service issues. These models are helping us diagnose faults, resolve common problems and proactively identify potential failures across our infrastructure.

Our ambition goes beyond responding to faults more efficiently. We want our systems to recognise the early warning signs of network degradation, correlate information from multiple sources and automatically raise engineering work orders before an emerging issue becomes service-affecting.”

The development of Nexus and Atlas reflects Exascale’s view that the future success of telecommunications operators will increasingly depend on their ability to use technology, data and automation to deliver services more efficiently. Further details of the platforms, including wholesale partner access, additional capabilities and availability, will be announced as development progresses.