Freedom Fibre Acquire Hollins Green FTTP Network from CityFibre UPDATE

Network operator Freedom Fibre, which has so far built their gigabit-capable broadband (FTTP) ISP network to cover 300,000 UK premises (27th Mar 2024) – mostly in the North West of England, has confirmed to local residents in the Cheshire village of Hollins Green and Rixton that they’ve acquired the local full fibre network from CityFibre.

Just to recap. The service in Hollins Green and Rixton was first announced in September 2020 by CityFibre’s FibreNation division as part of a trial to evaluate PIA in rural areas (here), which only a few months earlier had been acquired from TalkTalk for £200m (here). After this TalkTalk continued to act as the retail ISP for customers on the UltraFibreOptic (UFO) and FibreNation parts of their network (technically, FibreNation built the network just before CF acquired them).

However, the local service made the news a couple of times last year after TalkTalk began to issue wrongful closure warnings to local customers (here and here), which caused plenty of confusion. At the time ISPreview was informed by a number of residents that CityFibre’s support agents were actively signalling that a future deal might see Freedom Fibre takeover the local network, but neither party would confirm that.

The latest change is that residents within the community have recently begun to be informed that Freedom Fibre has in fact acquired the local network.

Customer Statement from Freedom Fibre

Attention Hollins Green!

Did you know that Freedom Fibre have purchased the broadband network in the area, and we’re set to upgrade the network to the latest in full-fibre technology?

We know you probably have a lot of questions about why we’re doing this and what’s involved, so we’re hosting a drop-in session on the 4th of June at The Black Swan from 3pm-7pm.

Refreshments and Ice-cream will be provided, so pop by and chat all things full-fibre with the Freedom Fibre team.

The reference to adopting the “latest in full-fibre” technology probably reflects a shift from GPON to XGS-PON technology via a new vendor, as the platform that FibreNation deployed harnessed older hardware and some of that is also known to have involved kit from the now banned Huawei (it’s not clear if the latter is also applicable to Hollins Green).

The acquisition would make sense for Freedom Fibre because they’ve already been building in the area, although it’s less clear why CityFibre would choose to sell (we have asked for a comment) – particularly as the latter are actively trying to grow through consolidation and not shrink. But it’s possible that CityFibre may have found this approach to be both easier and cheaper than upgrading the network, at cost, themselves.

UPDATE 1st June 2024:

Just a small update. But for context, ISPreview understands that CityFibre had no plans to build out the trial network in this area and they therefore just continued to maintain it until Freedom Fibre took it on. We understand that a formal deal on this was done in December 2023. Lest we forget that Freedom Fibre’s CEO, Neil McArthur, is also the former CEO of FibreNation, the builder of the network in Hollins Green.