ISP Wildanet Open Full Fibre Network to Wholesale in Cornwall UK

Broadband ISP Wildanet, which is building a new gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across rural parts of Cornwall and Devon in South West England (here), has confirmed that they will be working with AssetHUB to make their infrastructure and services available on a “fair and neutral wholesale basis” for other ISPs.

The operator, which is being backed via a £50m investment from the Gresham House British Strategic Investment Infrastructure Fund (BSIF), is already deploying across various locations, such as Liskeard, Dobwalls, Torpoint, Callington, Launceston, Wadebridge, Bude and Pensilva. Similarly, their builds in Devon have seen them expand into Totnes and neighbouring Dartington.

On top of that, they recently secured a public investment of £36m under the Government’s £5bn Project Gigabit broadband rollout scheme (here), which will see their full fibre network being extended to reach more than 19,250 hard-to-reach premises across other parts of Cornwall.

The catch with public investment is that operators are required to launch a wholesale solution, so that other ISPs can sell over the infrastructure they build. But admittedly, in this market, a wholesale solution is increasingly being viewed as a necessity – regardless of whether or not public investment is involved.

Wildanet currently owns and operates a “diverse routed network ring” around Cornwall and with 22 regional Points of Presence (PoPs) to provide local access (NNI) to a high-capacity fibre optic spine network, which connects to strategically important commercial data centres. This can provide active and passive services to wholesale customers, which is where AssetHUB comes in.

Paddy Paddison, Wildanet’s CITO, said:

“This exciting partnership with AssetHUB means that our investment in infrastructure will not only be used to support extending our coverage plans throughout the South West, but will also provide other organisations with access to our infrastructure that they can use to provide future proofed services to their customers faster and more cost effectively than before.

Using AssetHUB to automate and standardise the mapping, management and order process of these available services will ensure the investment will be operated efficiently. It will prevent unnecessary overbuild, reduce the impact of disruption, minimise the impact on the environment and provide Wildanet with an additional wholesale route to market, while increasing speed to market for other operators.”

The challenge for vertically integrated operators like Wildanet, which act as both a retail ISP and wholesaler, is usually with making their wholesale products attractive enough that other operators will want to use them, while simultaneously trying to protect their own retail base from being eroded. Compromise is never easy, but in a market as crowded as this, wholesale can help to tackle the take-up challenge, when done correctly.

Residential customers of Wildanet’s service typically pay from £39.99 per month (currently discounted to £25) to receive a 200Mbps (100Mbps upload) package on a 24-month term with free installation, which rises to £59.99 if you want their top 900Mbps (400Mbps upload) package.