Netomnia Add 5 New Locations to UK FTTP Broadband Rollout
Fibre builder Netomnia – supported by UK ISP YouFibre – have today added 5 new locations to their rollout of a 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which will ultimately expand their coverage to a further 218,000 premises in England and at an additional cost of £66 million.
The new locations are spread out across England and include Hoddesdon, Bishop Auckland, Castleford, Macclesfield and Didcot. As usual, some of these areas will already be served by one or more gigabit-capable broadband network, although Netomnia’s lower cost and PIA (existing cable ducts/poles) heavy build tends to help on the viability front.
The operator, which is currently present in parts of 35 towns and cities (with many more in-planning), ultimately aims to reach 1 million premises across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by the end of 2023 (they’re currently at 410,000 premises). Indeed, they’ve already revealed their full coverage plan for this year, but since then they’ve continued to add new locations (example here and here).
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Zoltan Kovacs, MD of Netomnia, said:
“We know how empowering excellent internet access can be and are working hard to level the digital playing field. So, it’s always exciting to start work in new areas, showing residents we are serious about upgrading their local broadband infrastructure.
Homeowners and businesses will be able to access dramatically increased speeds allowing them to take full advantage of all the resources on the Internet and the opportunities they offer. Our network also enables multiple users in a property to be connected to the internet with multiple devices simultaneously and seamlessly. What’s more, this new network will accommodate even faster speeds in the future, meaning we are future-proofing people for their evolving connectivity needs.”
The service, once live, is typically supplied to consumers via YouFibre, which offers unlimited usage, symmetrical speeds, a Wi-Fi router, free installation and 24/7 UK based support. Customers pay from just £21 per month on a 24-month term for their unlimited 150Mbps package (£25 thereafter), which rises to just £29.99 if you want their top 920Mbps plan (£40 thereafter). The latter is also on an offer of £1 a month for the first 3 months.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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These are not new additions, they have been on their rollout since last year, Macclesfield is even showing as live on their website
You’re correct. I’m not sure why they presented them as “new locations” in the PR. Perhaps because the build has now started and the investment level/coverage plan is finally confirmed.
I was about to say they are already clearing the ducting in my street in Castleford and have already laid some of it in other areas? Mark I wonder if they’ve sent out the incorrect press release?
Just a bit late at sending the PR 😉
Wish they’d hurry up with the Tonypandy roll out!
Heh, don’t bank on them building everywhere! Other providers are on the way that do, though.
Ogi have just announced and there’s a sprinkle of Grain available. Anyone else?
Netomnia announced Tonypandy in 2021, it said starting in 2022 on their website for all of 2022. Now it’s starting in 2023! 🙁
Tonipanda has a big problem with joint user poles which are tricky to deliver
@poleman how is it an issue for Tonypandy but not elsewhere?
Openreach have their own poles in most places.
Some areas really heavily on joint user poles which are usually owned by the electric company.
The regulations and H&S rules around electricity poles increases complexity and cost.
Appreciate it might be tricky, but 2 years worth of H&S paperwork though?
Actually found a netomnia branded floor chamber in Porth over the weekend. First one I’ve seen, so either they have started deploying or a contractor has mistakenly put a netomnia one instead of an Ogi branded one.
Netomnia Go!!!! Can’t wait to join aboard. Stuff you Brokenreach and your expensive limited upstream speed products….
Openreach make money on upstream through EAD, you’d be surprised how much markup they have on those, hence absolutely no appetite for them to increase upload on “cheaper” products – it would erode their profits elsewhere.
They just keep adding new towns, but how about get something done?
For example, Wisbech (PE13). Started at least in 2021. Quickly laid cables, but unable to get 1/3 of town live for more than 6 months PE133T… .
Just excuses… . Looks, not reliable company at all.
Yes I’m inclined to agree with you, we had a letter I bet 2 years ago now saying they were going to build in the Crigglestone area of Wakefield, but still no sign of anything to this day!
Emailed a couple of months ago to just be told it’s still planned.
Our main contractor in the area was LightSource…They went bust.
What about Upp coming to Wisbech, see e.g. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/11/upp-extend-uk-fttp-broadband-rollout-in-norfolk-and-lincolnshire.html ?
Burton isn’t on the rollout list but apparently they are doing work this week to start the rollout. Hopefully they can beat openreach who announced plans 3 years ago but haven’t done anything yet
Still waiting in Bedford. CBT in the ground in August 22. Told January, March, May to go live. I am excited to join and I am looking forward to being a customer, but i’m a bit dismayed they keep consistently missing the go-live dates. I even pre-ordered and then they told me they’ve stopped pre-orders now because of this problem.
Netomnia and there contractors seem to do a bit and leave a lot from what I have seen.
They only build where it’s easy/cheap, i.e. Poles, or PIA green. If you need ducts building, forget it.
This is hilarious. So they identify Castleford their rollout states the whole of Wakefield is live. Yes bar a small village of Crofton why is this well simply because there is no virgin media here and no easy ducting to route it (by their own confirmation)All other areas overserved in wakefield via vm, cityfibre,openreach,netomia/you fibre etc etc this village is overlooked by all network builders. Netomia/you fibre has changed to not in scope. Speeds here are <15mbit max via fttc and would certainly have been more lucrative to finish the build before bypassing! Sorry rant over!
Erm Normanton doesn’t have it either and I’d hardly call that smal and that does have VM and openreach.
They’re building Horbury and Ossett at scale with a few works in Lupset, Thornes, Flanshaw and Wrenthorpe. They’ll move east and pick up the rest of the city in due time.
They are probably skipping Crofton for the same reason the others have: cost to get there and not enough properties or the properties are too expensive to cover to make it worthwhile.
They are all working to budgets and 15%+ of the UK is too costly to cover without taxpayer subsidy.
“Zoltan Kovacs, MD of Netomnia, said:”
No he didn’t. Those words are so patently marketing claptrap that young Zoltan would be ashamed to even think them, ever mind say them. And referencing earlier comments that the new areas aren’t new, it’s clearly something issued to drum up a bit of press coverage, and remind the world that Netomnia haven’t gone bust (yet). In that sense, it’s worked a treat, here we are discussing Netomnia and their plans.
And hopefully they won’t go bust because they will keep enough money in reserve to run operations.
They do need to up their game on take-up though,using bill boards, local paper adverts etc. Don’t need to go potty but an advert every so often as most people completely unaware and unaware that their services are much better and cheaper than say VM or Brokenreach based products. Also see no sense in areas where there is other ALTNETS too like CityFibre. There must be areas that are easy to do with no big operators there yet…
@anonymous it would help an awful lot with their take up if Netomnia would actually complete a build here or there. They seem to specialise in getting a tiny part of a town connected, and then taking an absolute eternity to finish the job of connecting the rest of the town. They’re fantastic at starting builds and sending out leaflets and salespeople and taking pre-orders, but are proving themselves particularly bad when it comes to getting contracts to finish the job!
“And hopefully they won’t go bust because they will keep enough money in reserve to run operations.”
Always depends on the investors. When they boldly announce “Altnetmania Ltd have raised £10 trillion for a mongo fibre rollout, finance has been provided by a partnership led by Ponzi Investment Management LLC, including Bubble Investments LLP, and Titantic European Infrastructure Fund. A matching debt facility of £11 trillion has been agreed from a syndicate led by Hindenburg Bank GMbH, and featuring Chernobyl Finance, and Fukushima Bank”, all that really means is that those parties MIGHT provide £22 trn – equally they might stop at £1trn, or they might pull their backing altogether. In practice all early investment is handed out on a staged basis against specific targets, but these are often key measures about investing the money and growing the footprint, so probably without any strings around avoiding overbuild, or creating a sustainable business.
Once a company starts cutting staff, that shows the investors aren’t doling out the readies for opex, even if theoretically there’s tens of millions of committed but unreleased funds. Very importantly Netomnia aren’t AFAIK anywhere near that situation, although “we’re still here” press releases that announce nothing are perhaps a portent.
Let’s be charitable, assume Netomnia are in the clear, growing well, and the business plan is coming together. In that case, with several altnets already vanished or in distress, the threat to them is contagion. We aren’t there yet, but once the panic sets in as the more exposed business models collapse, many PE investors (and particularly the debt providers) will be seeking to offload their holding to minimise further risk. This then attracts the vulture funds, so there’s always a buyer, just not necessarily at a price the original investors want. But that’s a story yet to unfold, and maybe Netomnia’s backers are in to take advantage of market turmoil and build by asset acquisition who knows?
And as with retailers, sometimes business owners insist everything’s good, but it’s the equipment and services suppliers who see the writing on the wall, and start to refuse to do business with companies in a sector where they’ve had their fingers burned by being an unsecured creditor. Watch out for any more altnets who go into adminstration rather than trade sale, that’s when the brown stuff starts to splatter.
What is announced and what is actually built are two totally different things
Most alt nets and Openreach fail to driver that they promise
Still waiting in Wrexham, a lot of bits to finish off by the contractor. Was told March by YouFibre, but looks like it’s rolling back like a boulder down a inclined plane!
Next month 🙂
They only did half of my town then left.
Same in Bridgend, massively disappointed as Openreach aren’t bothering in my street either.
Started quickly in Dover and River in December at fast pace then trailed right off for Temple Ewell, even though the Netomnia foot chamber was installed near end of Wellington Road.
There is a lot of sudden activity back in Folkestone, so I may not be wrong in thinking the contractors got called back to an existing live area to do works and they may have also encountered blocked or collapsed ducts too.
I’m hoping they return and finish my area off as looking forward to their service over BT (though BT not committed to FTTP from Archers Court Exchange at all). It makes giving notice to my current ISP difficult though if my contract discounted period ends as I hoped to use price rise exit clause but now locked back in again till end of the contract. When it ends it will go right up unless I fix into another 18 month contract which I really don’t want to do. Time for now though not to worry….Sitting it out for now – just wish they could give indicative dates, even if a month of fat was added on 🙂
Didcot. An old stomping ground of mine. Nice.
I’m loving YouFibre. Reliability has been 5 9s, the connection always very fast and responsive. 8 Gbit/s any time I care to check.
They maintain this level of quality anyone who can join them absolutely should.
THey used to have Scaroborugh on there website, then it disapeared
Yes, because another company is doing it 🙂
Grain I think. Digging up pavements and putting in Tobies. Can’t blame Netomnia for not spending their money overbuilding another challenger.
Now that actually makes sense
It is long overdue that OFCOM and the ASA clamped down on misleading claims these Alt nets and even Openreach make
Are you commenting on the wrong article or are you arguing netomnia is not working in the towns in the article
Which claims?
Anyone knows when they’ll be live in Tunbridge Wells?
Website says live already. You can check their progress on TBB
https://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map#10/51.1685/0.3518/youfibre/
Lol just 3 months after Netomnia have started fibre in Aylesbury, OpenReact have just started what a joke, been asking them since 2015 but they they we just harping on about FTTC saying it was ultrafast and nothing else was needed.
Guess it’s not good enough now lol think they need to go back and tell my MP they made a mistake in 2015 when they wrote back to him regarding my broadband connection!