Orbital Net and New ISP MGMT Plan UK FTTP Broadband Rollout

Fixed wireless access provider Orbital Net (Vfast) and new entrant MGMT have separately today both revealed that they’re developing plans for future roll-outs of a gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, albeit in different parts of England and Scotland. Both intend to target areas that are currently poorly served.

The plans came to light as part of two separate requests for Code Powers from Ofcom (here and here), which can help to speed-up the deployment of new networks and cut costs by reducing the number of licenses needed for related street works across the United Kingdom.

We’ll start with Orbital Net, which is more familiar because of their well-established wireless broadband network – Vfast – in Kent (England), although they also have some limited coverage in parts of East Sussex, Devon and Essex. The provider has previously offered some FTTC and FTTP services too, albeit mostly over separate network platforms (e.g. OFNL, Openreach).

Under the new proposal Orbital Net is now looking to “facilitate the expansion of its FTTP access network” in England (“mainly” by harnessing Openreach’s existing cable ducts via Physical Infrastructure Access) and also to “facilitate the operation and expansion of its FWA [wireless] network.” Sadly nothing too specific is mentioned.

Finally we come to the latest entrant into the full fibre race, MGMT, which is seeking to build a 10Gbps capable FTTP network – aimed at both homes and businesses – across some unspecified parts of England and Scotland. We couldn’t find a website for this provider, but their company details suggest that they were recently renamed from “LIGHTSPEED CONSTRUCTION LTD” (Lightspeed Group).

We think it’s possible that MGMT could be acting as a civil engineering company rather than a retail ISP, but some groups have crossed into both territories. In any case we couldn’t find any further details on the Cheshire based business.