AltNet Full Fibre ISPs Target 29.9 Million UK Premises by 2025

A new report from the Independent Networks Co-operative Association and Point Topic has estimated that alternative “full fibre” (FTTP/B) broadband ISPs grew their UK coverage by 110% in 2020 (up from 52% last year) and cover 2.586 million premises – such providers now aspire to cover 29.9m by the end of 2025.

The figures given above are lower than those stated in Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations 2020 report (here), which found that full fibre networks had passed over 5.1 million premises by September 2020 (18% of the UK). The difference stems from the fact that INCA’s data excludes Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) deployments from major established operators – Openreach (BT) and Virgin Media – in order to focus on independent alternative networks (altnets) like B4RN, Cityfibre, Gigaclear, Hyperoptic, CommunityFibre, G.Network and many more (Summary of UK Full Fibre Builds).

As things stand, the report predicts that gigabit-capable altnet providers will deliver to 6.637 million premises by the end of 2021, before rising to 29.9 million by the end of 2025. But the figures for 2025 are based more on future deployment aspirations and so must be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly since unexpected events like COVID-19 can easily disrupt such plans.

Meanwhile, the current take-up rate is 32.67% (up from 30% last year), which is a good result as fibre operators tend to look for adoption of around 20-25%+ to help make their models viable. At this point we should caveat that take-up is something which grows slowly over time, and it’s often suppressed during the rapid ramping-up phase of a new network deployment (i.e. building far faster than people are able to adopt it).

One other caveat is that these figures aren’t weighted against the potential for overbuild with rival networks and are thus more of a raw overall total from all operators. Furthermore, there is often a tendency for some operators to report technically unfinished or non-live builds (i.e. you can’t yet order the service itself) in their premises passed figures, which can cause complications when forecasting coverage.

Meanwhile, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks are estimated to cover over more than 2 million UK premises (roughly the same as the 2.3m figure they touted last year), although not all will have full service available (wireless signals are variable and so producing an accurate figure is extremely difficult).

Sadly, we don’t get a full split of the data for FWA connections this year and INCA’s forward forecast excludes them. “Unfortunately, there is still too little information available in the market for us to provide ro-bust future estimates for the fixed wireless sector,” said the report. But in their infographic it does mention gigabit-capable wireless services reaching 3 million+ premises by 2025 (up from 1m+ in 2021).

Finally, the study estimates that altnets have an intended capital expenditure (CAPEX) spend – from now until end-2025 – of over £10.8 billion, with operational expenditure of at least £1 billion. However, INCA warns that some of this may not be new money (i.e. re-announcements of existing funding) and some of those commitments may be quite aspirational, so it remains to be seen how much Capex actually occurs.

Malcolm Corbett, CEO at INCA, said:

“This report demonstrates that the ‘altnets’ are making a major contribution to meeting the Government’s targets for gigabit broadband connectivity. This current wave of investment, particularly in full fibre and wireless broadband networks, means there is no segment of the market where there isn’t a plan to build independent networks. This should be applauded and supported by government, regulator and the wider community.”

Altnet providers are clearly continuing to have an increasingly significant impact across the United Kingdom and that is set to continue for the foreseeable future, which is one of the reasons why major operators like Openreach have been ramping-up their own builds. Never underestimate what a bit of competitive pressure can do, as well as the usual changes via regulation (Ofcom) and a stronger political drive toward fibre.

Speaking of political drive, the Government’s new £5bn Project Gigabit scheme has of course promised to further boost such networks by supporting operators to deploy across the final 20% of predominantly rural premises, which often fall into the economically unviable trap (i.e. state subsidy is required to go further). The goal here is to make gigabit-capable networks available to at least 85% of UK premises by the end of 2025.

However, the increasingly aggressive level of competition within the market and future overbuild will perhaps inevitably produce both winners and losers, which tends to invite future consolidation as well as a few failures. Suffice to say that it’s always wise to take such forecasts with a pinch of salt.

Finally, it’s noted that altnet providers still have a number of familiar concerns, some of which (e.g. overbuild by Openreach), remain just as strong now as in previous years. Meanwhile other issues, such as the known problems with planning / street works delays and wayleaves (legal access agreements), have crept up the list of importance in 2021.

On the flip side, improvements to access via Openreach’s existing cable ducts (PIA) are clearly showing through.