MS3 Begin Trial to Run FTTP Broadband via KCOM’s Poles in Hull UK
The CEO of alternative broadband operator MS3, Guy Miller, has confirmed to Richard Tang (CEO of ISP Zen Internet), in a new interview, that they’ve just begun a trial with KCOM in Hull that will allow them to deploy their full fibre (FTTP) lines by harnessing some of the incumbent’s existing poles and ducts – potentially reducing community complaints.
Hull-based MS3 is an Asterion-backed operator that aspires to cover 535,000 UK premises with their gigabit fibre network by the end of 2025. So far they’ve already reached 210,000 premises (footprint), with 15,000 customers connected, and a big chunk of that is in Hull, where they’ve seen their network cover upwards of 130,000 premises. A further 80,000 are in Scunthorpe, with the rest coming from Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Immingham, and Mexborough.
The interview starts off by revealing that MS3’s overall market penetration is only about 7%, although this rises to 29% for areas (e.g. parts of Hull) that have been built and live for between 2-3 years. But Guy notes that, out of all their build locations, the one in Hull is the most profitable because it’s “twice the price to build, but three times the penetration [vs Scunthorpe].”
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One of the main reasons for this is because Hull has traditionally been dominated by a single local incumbent, KCOM, which have long made it very difficult, commercially, for rivals like MS3 to run new fibre via existing cable ducts and poles. By comparison the other locations, like Scunthorpe, benefit from Openreach’s regulated PIA (Physical Infrastructure Access) product, which makes it easier and cheaper for rivals to run new fibre via existing ducts and poles.
Guy Miller, MS3’s CEO, said:
“Sharing infrastructure in Hull hasn’t been possible, so we have had to build telegraph poles. [This is a] really simple economic model, if the houses are close together we can dig it, but if they’re further apart we have to go [overhead], or leave it behind, because that’s the choice we have.
And we fundamentally feel that leaving it behind is taking out a number of people’s life choices when it comes to broadband, so we’re not going to do it. So we’ve had to put poles in, and they’re not always loved by residents … it’s gone from the ludicrous, such as councillors standing in holes trying to stop us doing things, to the downright dangerous and having poles chopped down.
We do have a hardcore group of a couple of dozen protestors who write to me frequently, and I write back, and we have interesting conversations. But we also have 15,000 families who have moved to our service and half are using telegraph poles to connect and they are grateful we’re there. You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, and telegraph poles are my omelettes.”
Poles – a common sight across much of the UK – are popular because they’re quick and cost-effective to build (trenching is significantly more expensive), can be deployed in areas where there may be no space or access agreement to safely put or share new underground cables, are less disruptive (avoiding the noise, access restrictions and damage to pavements of major street works) and can be built under Permitted Development (PD) rights with only minimal prior notice.
On the flip side, many people dislike poles, typically due to perceptions of their negative visual appearance, as well as concerns about exposure to damage from major storms (example), deployments in areas of outstanding natural beauty or where poles haven’t existed before. Not to mention the lack of more effective prior consultation, as well as situations where engineers may fail to follow safety rules while building and contractors that sometimes try to force them into small private gardens (rare, but we have seen it).
However, the best way to reduce such gripes in Hull would be for KCOM to adopt a solution similar to Openreach’s PIA product, which after a lot of pressure is something that another altnet in the same region – Connexin – began exploring during the spring (here). Progress has clearly been made on this because Guy Miller today confirmed that MS3 has also “been able to get some access to [KCOM’s] network, and literally that trial started this week.”
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Nevertheless, it’s still early days and KCOM are a long way from the maturity of Openreach’s product (Guy Miller expressed it as being akin to the early state of PIA, over a decade ago). In fairness, Guy also notes that being forced to build their own network in Hull hasn’t been all bad, since it means they’re not having to pay Openreach or KCOM any reoccurring rentals for an empty network immediately post-build (growing consumer take-up is a slow process).
Finally, we turn to the issue of market consolidation, and on this point Guy admits that reaching their coverage target of 535,000 premises through build alone, in such a competitive market, may no longer be viable. “Do we think that going out and building another 300,000 [premises] from scratch now would be a great idea in the current economic climate. No,” said Guy, before suggesting that it would be a “better idea to acquire it.”
On this point the CEO notes that MS3 are “one of the few debt free alternative networks … we’re very lucky that our investors have put all the money in as equity. We’re in a pretty good financial place. We will be EBITDA positive in the next few months.” But it remains unclear whether MS3 will be a consolidator or one of the consolidated.
The full interview between Guy Miller and Richard Tang can be viewed below:
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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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Excellent interview
Really ? Guy Miller pats KCOM on the back for good infrastructure and yet does not apply in the correct way to share it until this year ?
MS3 have used foreign investment to build the cheapest network possible and failed to adhere to codes of practise once they were gifted government legislation permitted development for telecommunications installations . Exploitation of the legislation is Rife in the UK and the current overbuild of infrastructure by many many code operators is a Scandal . It is only protestors , councillors and MPs in their pressure on Ministers that have made Guy Miller respond . The other aspect of this is the severe disregard for adherence to health and safety regulations that has occurred in many of these overbuilds of infrastructure both by the code operators and those subcontractors working on their behalf
I agree James, a really good interview.
If MS3 expand to cover the villages around Beverley in HU17 postcodes I will be signing up for sure.
Joyce, this gets a slightly more brusque to reflect the tone.
‘Guy Miller pats KCOM on the back for good infrastructure and yet does not apply in the correct way to share it until this year ?’
Respectfully, this is incorrect. KCOM do not get to decide what the ‘correct’ way to ask for access to their infrastructure under the ATI Regulations is. They know this, I’m not sure why you would disagree.
Back to the link from Julie and the guidance document:
https://www.kcom.com/wholesale/media/2yzfqoxo/kcom-request-for-new-wholesale-services-v21-030420.pdf
Bottom of page 10 of 30:
‘KCOM prefers the use of a SoR. However, where a Communications Provider submits a request under the terms of relevant regulation without using our SoR Template in Annex 2 we will simply process the request in accordance with the relevant regulation.’
The other point I want to respond to:
‘MS3 have used foreign investment to build the cheapest network possible’
I’ve no idea of the relevance of where investment comes from, and just to remind you KCOM has been owned by an Australian investment fund since 2019.
https://www.macquarie.com/au/en/about/news/2019/macquarie-infrastructure-and-real-assets-finalises-acquisition-of-kcom-group.html
MS3 described their build as about 50-50 between overhead and underground and noted their Hull build as a gross approximation was twice the cost of their build outside of Hull. The cheapest build would be one entirely using existing infrastructure where possible, the next cheapest would be no digging at all, poles to get to poles always. You’re both claiming they don’t want to spend any money above the bare minimum and claiming they unnecessarily spent money building when they didn’t have to.
You are of course entitled to believe what you want to on this. I’m not going to engage with the rest as bits are presumptuous, bits are inaccurate, and it’s both stereotyping every alternative network builder as riding roughshod over the country and suggesting that mistakes are intentional. Almost every alternative network doesn’t work this way, they are businesses working to budgets and both building unnecessarily and botching build to be forced to remediate it are bad business. Local issues make a lot of noise however millions of homes are being passed with full fibre across the UK every year with relatively few complaints.
What an absolute pile of tosh. I am livid.
Guy Miller is well versed in the spiel that enables his company to aggressively and unnecessarily install telegraph poles.
He insisted that KCOM was being awkward (over-pricing and ignoring applications) about MS3 applications to share infrastructure but, in reality, MS3 NEVER APPLIED TO KCOM from Aug 2018 and earlier in 2024! (https://www.kcom.com/wholesale/products/service-information/network-access-requests/)
If MS3 had got issues with KCOM’s behaviour, they could and should have reported them to OFCOM so that OFCOM could intervene and resolve the problems. BUT THEY NEVER DID!!
He wanted to ignore the ECC so that he could install MS3 infrastructure.
Sigh…
Hello Julie.
I’m not associated past or present with MS3 or anyone else wanting access to KCOM network just for clarity.
Your link shows nothing besides who filled in the form KCOM provide. Before that form existed requests were going in under the Access to Infrastructure Regulations. I know for a fact that these were going in since at least 2017-18 and KCOM even in the guidance document on your link note that they will process ATI requests regardless of the form.
https://www.kcom.com/wholesale/media/2yzfqoxo/kcom-request-for-new-wholesale-services-v21-030420.pdf
If you’d care to read Ofcom’s guidance on the ATI Regulations, their dispute resolution, you’ll be able to see why complaining to them is problematic. They require that all other avenues to resolve disputes are resolved.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/uncategorised/7777-ati-dispute-guidance/associated-documents/guidance-under-the-communications-access-to-infrastructure-regulations-2016.pdf?v=321413
Another issue is that until 2021’s review Ofcom did not touch on KCOM offering access to their ducts and poles. When they did it was a very light touch.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-1-10-weeks/198237-hull-area-wftmr-2021-26/associated-documents/statement-hull-wftmr-volume-3-remedies.pdf?v=327070
You’ll note they specifically declined to require KCOM to productise access to their ducts and poles.
Other operators were given the choice of complying with the terms and conditions within the KCOM SoR process if they wished to submit access requests under the ex ante SMP regulation or to submit ATI requests free-form. Either way it could be dragged out for years with a lot of money spent on lawyers.
Julie: do you really think in all the time between access being legally required in 2016 and the SoR on the website in 2024 no-one, not MS3, Connexin, Openreach, CityFibre, Three, Vodafone, EE, O2 or the many operators of national core fibre networks, or anyone else, made any attempt to access KCOM’s network?
You don’t have to believe me of course. Ask KCOM if they’ve had any requests under the Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations since they were passed into law and came into effect in 2016.
Do be exact with your request. I note they’ve lawyered responses on this matter senseless and it seems to have worked on some folks.
Listening to the U tube interview is like listening to an old boys network , patting each other on the back for doing something that goes against both the ECC (2003) and the cabinet and pole siting code of practise (2016) . Codes of practise that all code operators should adhere to Sharing of infrastructure should be the default practise , government state , so why is Guy Miller so late to the table ? He will have had the option to report KCOM to OFCOM if KCOM were not being fair on pricing or time taken to respond to requests for sharing infrastructure . This has never happened, principally because Guy Miller and MS3 had no intention of sharing infrastructure once they were gifted by our previous government legislation permitted development for telecommunications installations . Why rent someone else’s infrastructure if you can build your own . He’s canny yes , get investment to pay for the cheapest form of infrastructure you can by telegraph poles , never mind the impact of the telegraph poles on the streets . Impact of telegraph poles where once there was only accessible underground infrastructure by KCOM ( that could be shared)and now there are telegraph poles by MS3 and Connexin . The impact of triplicate sets of telegraph poles in many many streets in Hull and Cottingham and duplicate sets in other areas .Guy Miller plays down the impact , not only visually but the reduced accessibility of footpaths . Yes Hull and KCOM areas welcome choice of ISPs but this could have been acheived without the multiple infrastructures both MS3 and Connexin have installed . He calls out the protestors of the infrastructure ,but why wouldn’t you protest against the unnecessary builds of infrastructure. What Guy also fails to convey is that MS3 did not apply in the correct way to share infrastructure until this year , when they have been building since 2022.
Cool.
Let rips all the poles out then and go back to KCOM charging top whack and households losing out because they can’t afford it.
If the figures are correct, you’re looking at roughly 40k customers not using KCOM in an area where the residential footprint is roughly 210k.
You say people don’t want this, but, those figures suggest otherwise…
Right, won’t do everything but let’s see.
‘Listening to the U tube interview is like listening to an old boys network’
It’s a network infrastructure provider talking to an ISP after having a discussion on the ISP using the network infrastructure provider’s network. Richard Tang is hardly going to be hostile, is he? He didn’t have to raise the issues with poles at all.
‘Codes of practise that all code operators should adhere to Sharing of infrastructure should be the default practise , government state , so why is Guy Miller so late to the table ?’
During the discussion MS3 state they use Openreach infrastructure both outside the Hull area and inside it where it’s there, there isn’t much. They use council-owned ducts and CityFibre ducts in the Hull area. They make extensive use of Openreach infrastructure outside of the Hull area.
‘He will have had the option to report KCOM to OFCOM if KCOM were not being fair on pricing or time taken to respond to requests for sharing infrastructure ‘
See https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/10/ms3-begin-trial-to-run-fttp-broadband-via-kcoms-poles-in-hull-uk.html#comment-313154
‘This has never happened, principally because Guy Miller and MS3 had no intention of sharing infrastructure’
Your, inaccurate, opinion. See the post above and ask KCOM when they first received any request from MS3 or any forerunner company to access their infrastructure under the Communications (Access to Infrastructure) Regulations.
‘Why rent someone else’s infrastructure if you can build your own’
It’s a fraction of the up-front cost and much faster. See both the post above, the infrastructure sharing mentioned above, and listen to where the costs were mentioned in the interview.
‘where once there was only accessible underground infrastructure by KCOM ( that could be shared)’
Show me KCOM’s reference offer or any other offer on that underground infrastructure that made it anything other than theoretically accessible. I’ll wait.
‘The impact of triplicate sets of telegraph poles in many many streets in Hull and Cottingham and duplicate sets in other areas’
Agree, it’s not a pleasant sight at all. It looks pretty unpleasant looking down a street, especially from the top of a hill, and seeing poles with cables flying between them. Villages with telegraph poles and electricity poles come to mind.
‘but this could have been acheived without the multiple infrastructures both MS3 and Connexin have installed’
Agreed. However this wasn’t up to MS3 or Connexin alone. Given MS3’s build outside of the Hull area there is no reason at all to think they wouldn’t have had the same proportion of own build to use of existing infrastructure they do in the Hull area had the option been there.
‘What Guy also fails to convey is that MS3 did not apply in the correct way to share infrastructure until this year , when they have been building since 2022.’
For clarity I’ll repeat and link KCOM’s own comments on this.
https://www.kcom.com/wholesale/media/2yzfqoxo/kcom-request-for-new-wholesale-services-v21-030420.pdf
‘KCOM prefers the use of a SoR. However, where a Communications Provider submits a request under the terms of relevant regulation without using our SoR Template in Annex 2 we will simply process the request in accordance with the relevant regulation.’
There is no ‘correct’ way that KCOM get to tell others they must use else they get to ignore the law and regulation. Again they are quite aware of this and I’m not sure why you’ve been repeating this for so long. I’ll presume it was inadvertent and you didn’t read the document on the website you have been sending people to as evidence else you wouldn’t have done so.
The PIA comparison is a difficult one. The Openreach scale makes a direct comparison hard, as there will be a bunch of fixed costs with much smaller volumes to cover them.
Are any of the Altnets offering a PIA service on the networks they have built?
There was an interesting response by Richard to comment made on his interview with Andy Conibere a which suggested that Zen could become the middleman for multiple altnets, Richard seemed to be suggesting that Zen were looking at becoming an altnet aggregator presumably into some kind of virtual wholesale network. Whether such a thing is practical or financially viable remains to be seen, but it’s an interesting possibility.
Lived in Hull all my life and had no choice but to pay higher costs with only one broadband company here. 15,000 switching service in such a short time frame just shows how much we need companies like MS3 and Connexin to give us more choice and allow us to save money. My husband was made redundant recently and broadband was on the chop it list when we had to review our monthly finances and now we have gone from paying £70 month with KCOM to just £30 with an MS3 seller it allows us to keep the broadband on. Living in Hull we also know that they are a small number of people who feel strongly about poles but they do not speak for everyone.
Yet KCOM do a social tariff for £15 maybe this was an option for you when your partner was made redundant.
This small number of people re Poles you mention. My full street to a household signed a petition indicating not one resident would sign up to MS3. Yet they still put poles in anyway. Why? Just sat there complete eyesore with nobody on the network – what sense did this make to anyone? What consideration was shown? Zero
Interesting interview.
MS3 have shown no interest in the feeling of residents re the poles and some communities literally have them on every path and pavement without any thought for anyone. Complete eyesore. I’ve seen these block wheelchair access, prams, you name it. No wonder people cut them down. I doubt many meet any official requirements (distance from kerb , existing infrastructure etc)
How does their business model allow them to give broadband away at those prices??? How is this encouraging competition when MS3 own these resellers ? Pay cheap get cheap.
I’d much rather pay extra for reliability and after sales service that I get from my existing provider , would never risk changing over to a company who have no consideration for the communities they serve .
MS3 don’t own the resellers. Pricing is profitably lower thanks basically to not being your existing provider. Doesn’t relate to lower reliability or worse service: far fewer regulatory requirements, far fewer legacy costs, and of course a dose of not having spent a very long time as the local authority protected monopoly with the inefficiency that brings.
It’s not that long ago your existing provider’s idea of a wholesale product was to charge about as much wholesale as they did their own customers retail and to charge insane amounts to connect to their network before any customers could be connected.
Sometimes you aren’t paying more for a better service you’re paying more because the provider is used to not having any competition. If I remember rightly your provider’s prices dropped a fair bit since competition arrived. Given you’re delighted with the service doesn’t sound like the price reduction hurt service, sounds like they were taking advantage of their place in the market to charge more for the same product.
Witcher – Do you really think MS3 have done a great job in engaging with local residents listening to their concerns and endearing themselves to the local community?
Sticking a notice up on a lamppost is as far as this went. Poles are simply the cheapest and fastest way to deploy – no thought at all for the impact this may have or legitimate residents concerns. Playing that down in the interview is just patronising.
Grain have proved its possible without Poles – how much of MS3’s infrastructure in Hull is underground – very little I suspect. So why underground for Grain and not MS3?
In the interview Guy claims to have funded these resellers and basically do all their marketing, sales and support – MS3 might as well be the ISP brand. What’s the return for these resellers who are basically giving bb away for xx months – is there any at all? Why should I choose a reseller I’ve never heard of?
Ultimately me like many are not fond with the communication and tactics of MS3 and will stick to a product, service, and company that has never let me down. I am happy to pay a little more to do that I appreciate others might not share that view.
Yeah I understand and appreciate it. You’ll notice I avoid commenting on it as much as possible.
Grain focus on specific areas with homes very close together. Streets of terraced houses are their usual thing. They don’t build anywhere homes aren’t very close together as it would go outside their budget. They have small sections of build in such streets in towns and cities across the UK. The exception is new build estates but apart from that the pattern is pretty consistent.
MS3 claim to have laid 700km underground.
Guy specifically says they do not do end customer support in the interview. I would expect them to support their customers, the ISPs, with network issues. I may have missed it but don’t recall him mentioning funding them either and marketing is presumably MS3 marketing their network: he references a struggle in getting his customers to do more marketing outside of the Hull area.
The need to build poles in the Hull area is grim and the impact on the street view is depressing. I’m more inclined to blame the system that left that the only way to go rather than those legitimately using it. As I often say look at the new pole build per thousand premises served in the KCOM area versus Openreach nationwide: last I checked the ratio is more than 10:1. Whether KCOM or Openreach is the only variable that changes.
In case you aren’t aware there are social media groups on this. It’s very clear nothing would get built ever if all concerns were listened to: people complain and seek compensation over even underground build. I’ve no idea where the balance lies but absolutely appreciate where you’re coming from.
Guess Julie and Joyce didn’t want to talk anymore.
Very strange how they seem to hold KCOM completely blameless with no attempt to scrutinise them. Taking one company’s words unconditionally at face value and accusing the other of lying without evidence doesn’t make sense to me.
They’re telecoms companies not sports teams.