Voneus Acquires Rural Wales Focused Full Fibre ISP Beacons Telecom

Alternative rural network ISP Voneus, which is deploying both gigabit-capable Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband networks across parts of England and Wales, has continued its strategy of growth through acquisitions by gobbling Welsh provider Beacons Telecom.

At present Voneus claims to have “identified” a total of over 200,000 premises that could potentially be upgraded via either their FTTP or FWA solutions. But so far they’ve only covered a total of over 10,000 properties across England and Wales (up from 7,100 a year ago) and are planning to reach 20,000 by the end of this month.

By comparison, Beacons Telecom has been deploying their own FTTP network across parts of Powys and Monmouthshire in Wales since 2020 and the last update we had indicated that they were on track to deliver 15,000 premises by the end of 2022 (here). The service tends to be very cheap, with prices starting from £17.99 for a 160Mbps (50Mbps upload) package with a 50GB usage allowance (£24.99 for unlimited) on a 12-month term.

However, on Friday customers of Beacons Telecom began reporting that they’d received a new email from the ISP, which announced that they had “now become part of Voneus Broadband” (credits to Dave for sharing a copy of this letter).

Customer Email from Beacons Telecom

We have some exciting news for you! Beacons Telecom have now become part of Voneus Broadband.

Voneus is one of the UK’s largest rural broadband providers specialising in bringing superfast and ultrafast broadband to rural areas across Wales and England. Working together we will continue to expand fast and reliable broadband across new areas of Wales, bringing the latest technology to reach locations that larger providers cannot reach.

For now, there is nothing for you to do and there will be no change to our prices, speeds, contracts, or points of contacts and your billing and correspondence will remain as it does today with Beacons Telecom.

We will keep you updated on any new developments and should you have any queries at all, pleased do not hesitate to call us on our usual telephone number 02920 099 345.

A quick look at the Companies House details for Beacons Telecom (here) doesn’t yet reveal the change, although we do note that the provider did face a notice for compulsory strike-off in August 2022, which was discontinued the following month.