Spring Fibre UK File Notice of Intent to Appoint an Administrator
Alternative broadband operator Spring Fibre, which seems to have been in the early stages of rolling out a new 10Gbps capable wholesale full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP network since 2021 – starting in Lincolnshire (here), has confirmed to ISPreview that they’ve taken the “difficult decision” to file a Notice of Intention (NoI) to appoint an administrator.
Spring Fibre, which was initially backed by Kingsley Capital Partners and telecoms specialist Graphite Strategy, is known to have originally secured an investment of “up to” £155m from R&M’s (River and Mercantile) infrastructure business to support their aspiration of covering 1 million premises in England (here).
However, despite the long passage of time since they first surfaced, we’ve seen very few details or updates on their build progress and no sign of any retail ISP availability. The operator did at least appear to start building in Lincoln, as well as the small towns of Mablethorpe and Louth during early 2023 (here), but how far they got with those locations remains shrouded in mystery.
Advertisement
The operator’s situation then took a turn last month, after the publication of their annual accounts (here), which revealed that Spring Fibre’s principal investor said they would “not continue to fund its network construction plan“ or meet their continued operational expenditure. This left the operator to go on the hunt for a new investor, which in the current climate of high interest rates and competitive network build is a challenging prospect.
Nevertheless, a spokesperson for the altnet still told ISPreview that Spring Fibre was “in a strong position as they continue to build network in the East and Northeast of England, with supportive investors, having gone live with Customers in recent months.” The trail then went cold again, until the end of last week, when some of our sources started pointing toward an expectation of more redundancies, and we soon discovered why.
A spokesperson for Spring Fibre told ISPreview:
“We can confirm we’ve had a significant level of interest, including indicative offers for the business, we don’t today have an offer that provides the necessary liquidity in the time we have available. Unfortunately, with this in mind, we have taken the difficult decision to file a notice of intention.
We continue to progress discussions with the potential purchasers, with the aim of completing a transaction which maximises value for the business.”
Administration often occurs when a company, such as one that is in financial difficulty, is put into the hands of an administrator. The administrator then decides whether they can help the company to continue running or sell it off for a good price.
Once in administration, the company is often protected from legal action by people or organisations who are owed money (creditors). Administration can also mean that the company may not have to pay all its debts in full, but if deemed necessary, they can still be wound up.
Advertisement
Spring Fibre are currently still in the early stages of preparing to appoint an administrator, and there’s still a chance that a solution could be found. But it’s difficult for us to judge the network’s value given that we still don’t know how much fibre they were actually able to build or what level of overbuild may be involved.
UPDATE 28th Oct 2024 @ 8:21am
Some of our readers also claim to have previously spotted Spring Fibre’s contractors, SCD, working in or around locations like the Garforth/Kippax area (since c.2023), as well as nearby to the village of Great Preston. Some of these builds were said to have reached quite an advanced stage.
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.
« Virgin Media UK Give Free Access to 14 South Asian TV Channels
…and so it begins.
Lets face it, there’s probably only room for 3 nationwide providers, alongside maybe 1 other regional provider per region.
Probably 3 national providers plus a few niche players (B4RN and Wightfibre spring to mind). Trouble is I don’t think consolidation of the altnets into a third network in the near future is going to happen without the investors taking a haircut which is probably why we aren’t further down that road already. Of course the other looming elephant in the room is the forthcoming Virgin Media’s wholesale offering and how that will be priced.
So the principal investor put in some money and then pulled out? Either the principal investor never had this money and was trying to secure it elsewhere, or this is something creative.
Could well be.
A lot of VCs don’t really have much cash ATM.
Very hard environment to raise funding.
It is a shame, but if they did not have any retail ISP availability, then they are never going to make any money. I hope if they have started any build, then it will be taken over. Mablethorpe is a such a nice place, I would not mind moving there myself
Mablethorpe (also known locally as “Disable-thorpe”) isn’t really that great a place compared to many other nicer areas in and around the coast. The town is mainly a retirement area with pensioners who haven’t got a clue what broadband actually is let alone fibre. If the town does get full fibre it would likely be a low takeup and a long wait for a return on investment
Mablethorpe has been completely covered by Upp, now Nexfibre and will be RFS in a few days, so won’t be short of competition.
If any AltNet does build something, and then the worst happens, who’s responsible for the remaining infrastructure?
Whilst fibre in a PIA duct won’t do much, it will become OR’s responsibility to remove, what if they’d installed a pole that rots and is in danger of falling?
What about roadside cabinets? Some may have batteries, which if not maintained could pose a fire risk.
Will we all have to pick up the tab through our council tax?
If they had got as far as having some customers, is the a supplier of last resort plan actually in place with OFCOM?
No doubt if Openreach ends up having to remove infrastructure installed by an altnets, Openreach customers than end up picking up the tab.
I’m no expert but I find it hard to believe the risk Openreach carries for potentially having to clean up after insolvent operators wouldn’t be factored in to the fees paid to access their infrastructure in the first place.
If the company has code powers then they have to have a financial instrument to remove or transfer any infrastucture to ensure this doesn’t become a responsibility of the council tax payer.
@Alastair that’s interesting. How does it work, covering going bust some where down the line? Is a single bond, proportional to their installation size, held in trust, or do they pay membership fee into a pool each year?
ISPreview user comments on the last Spring post spot on then! They’ll be lucky to get pennies on the pound!
Maybe the Spring Fibre “collapse” is timely i.e. bring some proper business planning to the table. As some of you may be aware, I’ve been looking at this “dilemma” since 2003 (when I founded First Mile Networks) and have authored an article for the Dec 24 SCTE Journal on the topic. Suffice to say, I am critical.
I am a Lincoln resident that signed the petition which, thankfully, convinced Spring Fibre they would not get any customers in our local area. So they stopped putting up the poles and left the area.
They stuck up ugly telegraph poles (THAT WE HAD NOT HAD BEFORE AS EVERYTHING IS UNDERGROUND) that are leaking and smelly right outside our windows without any notice, consultation or consideration.
We where told by the Council that there is no statutory need for anyone to tell us anything. However, just weeks before City Fibre had laid underground cables. They gave us two weeks notice, explained in a letter what they were going to do and contact details for of we had any concerns or questions. We did have concerns and questions and the area rep came out to our street and chatted and answered everything.
So what worries me know is who is going to be responsible for the pole outside my window?