G.Network Sign First UK ISP to London Fibre Network at Wholesale

Broadband ISP and network builder G.Network, which is rolling out a new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) network to homes and businesses across parts of London, has today announced that business provider Spitfire has officially become their first wholesale partner on the new infrastructure.

The operator, which originally claimed to be committing around £1bn to support an aspiration for extending their full fibre network to cover 1.3 million premises in London by the end of 2026, has recently had a bit of a rough time due to funding problems, job cuts and a slowdown in the pace of build (here). But the situation has since stabilised after additional funding was secured and management changes were made.

However, it’s easy to forget that G.Network originally promoted their network as being “open access” (i.e. capable of being harnessed via wholesale by other ISPs), although until now they haven’t previously been able to attract any ISPs to adopt their network. This is often partly because it can be expensive for ISPs to add a new network to their platforms, thus the network needs to have both good coverage and an attractive enough wholesale product to warrant such investment.

The last build update we had from G.Network, which was all the way back in 2022, stated that they’d so far covered 400,000 homes and businesses in the city (mostly across London’s Central Activity Zone, including Westminster and Camden). But independent checking has only been able to identify 255,000 premises as being ready for service in July 2023 (here), although this figure will have since increased. Nevertheless, for Spitfire’s clients in London, that seems to be enough.

Kevin Murphy, CEO of G.Network, said:

“As the largest alternative full fibre wholesaler to enter the capital’s business market, G.Network is focused on building a better-connected London. By giving wholesalers the opportunity to access our powerful 100% fibre network, more businesses across the capital can harness our Gigafast speeds and get geared for growth.

We’re delighted to have a distinguished wholesaler like Spitfire on board and I’m looking forward to developing further wholesale partnerships in the future as we continue on G.Network’s accelerated path to growth.”

Harry Bowlby, MD of Spitfire Network Services Ltd, added:

“Spitfire are delighted to announce this wholesale agreement with G.Network, which will enable Spitfire to enhance our existing One Network solution by offering a further range of latest generation, high bandwidth, competitively priced internet access and wide area networking solutions to business customers in London.”

According to the announcement, Spitfire are planning to launch connection products for businesses that will offer speeds of up to 10Gbps, which is in keeping with the current capabilities of G.Network’s infrastructure. No example products were provided to help assess how competitive these would be, although they’ll probably not be a million miles from what G.Network itself offers.

For example, G.Network themselves are selling a 10Gbps (symmetric) FTTP package to businesses for the aggressively competitive price point of just £499 +vat per month on a 5-year term (we assume shorter terms at higher cost are available – 3-years is more common), which includes free installation. The provider also backs this up with a 5-hour fix time under their Service Level Agreement (SLA).