F&W Networks Grows UK Full Fibre Cover to 410,000 Premises
Altrincham-based alternative network provider F&W Networks, which is rolling out their new gigabit-capable full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network to various parts of England, has today announced that they’ve almost doubled their coverage over the past year to 410,000 premises (up from 250k in Feb 2023).
The operator, which previously aspired to cover 1 million premises by 2025, has spent the past few years deploying their network across parts of several counties in England including West Sussex (Horsham and Southwater), Oxfordshire, Greater London, Buckinghamshire (Gerrards Cross, Chalfont Saint Peter, High Wycombe and Beaconsfield), Hertfordshire (Hemel Hempstead), Hampshire, West Berkshire and Surrey (Godalming) etc.
The network is supported by a number of ISPs (e.g. Hey! Broadband, Octaplus, Link Broadband and Home Telecom) and their rollouts were previously said to be underway in a total of 40 areas across Southern England. But today’s update notes that their network is now live in more than 30 locations, although their future coverage plans are less clear.
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José Luis San Martín, CEO of F&W Networks, said:
“We’re working to rapidly convert passed properties to RFS with our renewed focus on customer take-up and we’ll continue to work with all our partners to ensure more businesses and homes understand and enjoy the benefits of full-fibre connectivity.”
Despite all the progress, it is worth noting that FWN recently had to scale-back some of their build plans and notify staff of future redundancies (here), which is due to some of the same market challenges as other AltNet’s are currently experiencing. Suffice to say, it will be interesting to see how many premises they’re able to add to the total during 2024, but the move to re-focus on growing take-up suggests that it won’t be as much as in 2023.
The latest announcement also notes that primary ISP Hey!Broadband has experienced “significant service adoption” in Horsham, High Wycombe, Crawley, Southall, Ealing, and the Oxfordshire region, with upcoming focus in East Grinstead, Redhill and Cranleigh. But no customer figures have been provided.
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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Their number was fudged then and it is still fudged now
They’ve been building pretty aggressively in Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath, although interestingly blocked PIA ducts cause them to rapidly lose interest.
Hey! Broadband are advertising in Banbury and seem to be available in parts of it although as far as I can tell F&W have no presence here. Swish do have a presence so I guess that Hey! Broadband are providing through them.
They worked for an eternity in the streets around this part of West London, including on our corner. New cabinet in next street, powered up and humming away for a good while. Pop details into Hey Broadband website. “Drop us your details. We’ll let you know when we’re in your area.” This is despite getting a mail shot several months ago with an introductory offer.
If I’ve learnt one thing about Altnets, it’s that they have the same problems with infrastructure and marketing as they do with discerning their rear ends from their elbows.