
Alternative UK network operators Trooli and OFNL, which are in the process of rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTT) broadband network across various parts of the United Kingdom, have today become the latest providers to join the Fibre Cafe connectivity aggregation platform.
Fibre Cafe’s platform is essentially designed to tackle the significant integration and automation challenges for broadband ISPs when onboarding new networks (e.g. common processes, a national availability checker, alternative network agnostic order journeys and a unified interface etc.), whilst enabling such operators to more easily bring their own wholesale propositions to market.
Together, Trooli and OFNL collectively bring an “additional 500,000 premises” to The Fibre Café platform. Joining The Fibre Café is also said to mark the “first step in Trooli’s wholesale strategy headed up by Wholesale Director, Rhiannon O’Neill, following her appointment to the role last year.”
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Wail Sabbagh, Managing Director at Strategic Imperatives, said:
“We are thrilled to welcome Trooli and OFNL to The Fibre Café and look forward to supporting their wholesale growth as a key partner. By joining the platform, both network owners gain a significant competitive advantage through streamlined onboarding, enhanced automation, and direct access to a rapidly expanding pool of service providers.”
The announcement also reveals that Trooli’s FTTP network has now covered 370,000 premises (Ready for Service), which is the first update we’ve had since January 2024 when the figure was 334,000 premises. We suspect they may also now be including their Axione UK base from Scotland into that total. This in turn suggests that OFNL now have 130,000 premises.
I like the concept behind Fibre Cafe, I think it’s a great idea. I hope it’s a great success, I wish them and their members every success.
I tried to sign up to Trooli last year as they were ready in my road, but after the engineer evaluation they cancelled my order as it would have cost over £3000 for 50m of ducting and fibre!
Their cabinet is right next to my house too, but on the other side of a wall.
Great idea but I would presume that an ISP would still need to have a separate wholesale agreement with each network they wished to provision on. The next step surely would be a shared wholesale offering to allow ISP’s to provision across multiple networks with one agreement. This surely would attract more ISP’s onto the platform.