VIDEO – Richard Tang Interviews Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre

The CEO of UK ISP Zen Internet, Richard Tang, has today published another informative video interview, this time with the CEO, Graeme Oxby, of London FTTP broadband network builder CommunityFibre. The interview covers take-up, coverage, consolidation, pricing, social tariffs and much more.

The operator, which also owns ISP Box Broadband – a full fibre network that covers parts of Surrey and West Sussex in England (here), is currently aiming to reach 2.2 million UK premises by the end of 2024 – more than half of all the homes in London (3.7 million). On top of that, Box Broadband also holds a “goal of delivering fibre to in excess of 250,000 homes by the end of 2024” (not included in CF’s 2.2m target).

In terms of funding, CF were originally backed by £90m from private investors and Government schemes (e.g. Amber Infrastructure and RPMI Railpen), followed later by £400m via Warburg Pincus and DTCP, and £100m from a syndicate of existing and new banks. Back in October 2022 they also added a new finance facility of £985m – made up of £685m in committed facilities and a further £300m uncommitted accordion (here).

Residential customers typically pay from £20 per month on 24-month term (optional term of 12-months) for a symmetric speed of 150Mbps with an included router (£22 thereafter), which rises to £49 for their top 3Gbps tier (£51 thereafter). On top of that they also have a special tariff that gives you 20Mbps speeds for just £12.50 per month on a 12-month term, which is technically a social tariff, except anybody can take it.

The new interview doesn’t reveal much that we didn’t already know, although there were a few interesting bits of new information. For example, Oxby notes that Box Broadband by itself has now passed “well beyond” 50,000 premises passed, which is fine, but it does rather suggest that their prior aspiration of reaching in excess of 250,000 homes by the end of 2024 could be very difficult to achieve.

Oxby also reveals that they’ve now connected 500 community centres for free and, despite launching a super cheaper social tariff (20Mbps for £12.50 per month), they’ve found it difficult to get people to join even with direct promotions. In fact, it’s noted that, for reasons they “can’t fully understand“, they even found it tricky to attract people with earlier offers of “free broadband“.

On the flip side, CommunityFibre’s boss says they’ve been seeing an increasing volume of demand for their top 3Gbps service and are targeting a 10Gbps class package for the future. The main reason Oxby gives for not doing 10Gbps today (in the real-world this would be more of a 7-8Gbps package) is because consumers would thus struggle to harness more than 3Gbps in the real-world.

As part of that, Oxby appears to hint at a concern that a 10Gbps tier may generate more support tickets from users who simply don’t understand that, when they fail to get the top speed, the blame is often not with the broadband connection but rather the devices and internet services they’re using being unable to harness it. This is a very valid point.

Finally, CommunityFibre are known for their aggressively low pricing, although Oxby is keen to allay fears that this might just be a tactic to build volume (i.e. might they hike prices in the future?). Instead, he indicates that their current pricing, due to the low cost of their PIA heavy build in dense urban areas, is already at a sustainable level and so will remain low.