Zzoomm Sees FTTP Broadband Take-up Hit 20 Percent in Four More Towns
Oxfordshire-based alternative network operator Zzoomm, which has built their 2Gbps speed full fibre broadband network to cover 202,000 premises (RFS) in England, have today reported that they’ve achieved 20% take-up in a further four of their deployed market towns and often only 15-months after build completion.
The operator’s network, which is home to 30,000 customers (c.15% take-up), is currently available across parts of around 29 market towns and small urban communities in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Wiltshire and Cheshire. Zzoomm originally aspired to cover 1 million premises across 85 UK towns by the end of 2025, before the difficulties of raising fresh capital forced their build to stop (here and here). But growth via mergers and acquisitions is still being actively explored (here).
The rate of network take-up by consumers naturally tends to accelerate once it’s no longer being suppressed by an active build phase, which is one of the reasons why we’ve been seeing Zzoomm’s penetration starting to grow more rapidly in recent months. In fact, they’ve already passed the 20% mark in several locations (e.g. Sandhurst and Crowthorne, Shiplake, Northallerton etc.), which is a positive sign for operators.
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The latest development is that they’ve now passed the 20% mark in four more locations – Hereford, Stokesley & Great Ayton and Thirsk. This has been achieved on network builds which finished only 15 months ago for Hereford, Stokesley and Great Ayton and 25 months for Thirsk respectively.
Matthew Hare, CEO of Zzoomm, said:
“We are seeing notable take-up of our services across our networks driven by our excellent marketing and sales teams, supported by our customer and field service operations.
As one of our new Zzoomm customers, James Potter commented via Trustpilot. “Everything is working well after one month at 1Gb speed. No install hassle. UK based technical support staff were very helpful during set-up process. The extra speed is preventing buffering across several devices running simultaneously. Thus far well worth the change.
It’s a testament to all those working at Zzoomm that one in five properties across a number of our market towns are now Zzoommers. We are meeting the needs of our customers with our premier service – be it for working from home or multi-person gaming or multiple streaming.
A few weeks ago, we confirmed that nationally we have some 30,000 contracted customers and more than 200,000 ready for service (RFS) properties – the former has continued to increase as we are now adding 1,500 new customers each month. This represents a 15% uptake on a network which has been available for an average of only 17 months.”
Customers who take their residential service typically pay from £32.95 per month for an unlimited 200Mbps (symmetric speed) package on a 12-month term with an included router and installation, which goes up to £54.95 (normally £64.95) if you want their top 2Gbps tier or £29.95 (usually £39.95) for 1Gbps.
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 news. The more ALTNETS can stay around the better, even if some do merge.
Last thing (except BT Fans) we want is for BT and VMO2 only to exist. That is no consumer choice. One is a dinosaur mainly interested in their expensive leased line business, and the other is only interested in milking customers. Of course, in my opinion (and many others).
At the moment, competition is working, ALTNETS usually have the better service offering with symmetric and new technology deployments, whilst the BT Loyalists can stay on the legacy GPON asymmetric network.
It is good news, and you are correct we don’t want just Openreach and Virgin/ nexfibre to exist, need more competition. Openreach and Virgin for that matter have had it too good for too long.
BT is ceertainly a dinosaur.
I’ve been with Zzoomm since March this year. We had some speed issues in the evening in the Cheshire area for around 4 weeks, when I first joined. But since the back haul upgrade, its been rock solid since. Paying 54.95 for 2Gig up and down is fantastic. I can’t see me moving to another ISP now that I’ve had the speeds I’m paying for.
Had a few speed issues here in the evening in the first few weeks, but been rock solid since, apart from the couple of times they updated the firmware in the cabinet, but that is early in the morning when most of us are in bed.
The two main problems with Zzoomm is their choice of router, but I know people who are using their routers and seem to have no problem with it and their customer service could be better.,
Saw a couple of Zzoomm vans here this afternoon, so it looks like another house have had it installed.
@Ad47uk yeah the Zzoomm router isn’t the best at all. I mean it works and does the job ok. I wanted a more robust system for my kids online, that I have complete control over. I went with the TP Link deco BE65 2 units. Both units have 2.5gig ports and I have it set up with a Ethernet back haul. I have no wifi 7 devices but my iPhone 15 PM gets 1400/1500Mbps al over our 3 bedroom house with the 2 units.
@MICHAEL, I have a TPlink, but the Archer A53, it is a good router and does more or less what I want, even have a mesh system if I need one, but the Wi-Fi reaches all around the house with no problems.
I use Ethernet for as much as I can including my printer, I am not a fan of Wi-fi. the one good thing about my TP link router is that I can have a separate Wi-fi for IOT stuff and also for visitors.
I don’t need 2.5Guig networking, my Nas is only 1gig Ethernet.
All these zzoom news coupled with them stopping build just scream “hey guys please buy us out?!”
You don’t see Fibrus going “oh we got 20% takeup in Omaha, 20% takeup in Mayo bridge” every couple of weeks
They’ve always done a press release on milestones, personally I don’t see the drama in it… good on them it doesn’t smack of desperation at all.
Agree with Sam. These repetitive releases from ZZoomm are boring.
Build costs are too high. WOn’t get purchased
Build costs are high for all network providers, that is the most expensive part. The article said the build have finished here, which I thought it had, so now they can get on with getting customers.
Not sure why they keep coming out with take up, maybe it is something to keep their investors happy.
@Ad47uk
Build costs vary widely between builders. Trooli, Netnomia & Openreach have spent £200-£300 per premises passed, other networks including Zzoomm have spent £1000+ per premises passed which means long term they need to extract more money from each customer or have a much longer payback period.
@Big Dave, I wonder why Zzoomm’s cost is so high? I know they have used a lot of their own ducts, certainly down the main cycle path, able to get from one side of the city to the other with ease down there.
I hope they keep getting customers, because I certainly don’t want to move networks again unless I really have to, while I am living here anyway. i certain;ly don;t want to go back to opebnreach.
We see what happens, that is all we can do, they seem to be getting customers, all they need to do is advertise more.
@Ad47uk
You probably answered the question yourself. Netomnia & Trooli use mostly Openreach ducts & poles (PIA) where as is sounds like Zzoomm are building their own ducts etc which obviously costs more. Long term as long as they survive that could pay off because Zzoomm won’t have the ongping PIA rental costs that Netomnia & Trooli will have to continue paying to Openreach.
I did some quick calculations and if you take CityFibre out of the equation the altnets are actually getting 17% take up which is not bad considering they’re starting from zero.
Regurgitating the same press release every couple of weeks is a sign of the distress zzoomm are in. They need cash and they need it urgently.
Reading these announcements in the context of the news last month that zzoomm are seeking acquisitions, I think they’re about convincing the owners of other underperforming altnets to swap their equity for zzoomm equity.
I think they are trying to signal they can drive higher take-up rates, in addition to any operational cost savings from a merger ie. a chance for altnet owners to increase the value of their equity without having to formally write down the value of their investment just yet. Although I haven’t checked whether these locations where they’re shouting about 20% take-up are places where they still have first mover advantage.
Reluctance to admit defeat and accept cash bids that involve a write-down are currently preventing well-managed altnets with better cost discipline from buying poorly-managed ones that spent too much per premises passed, and as per other comments zzoomm are in this second group themselves.
Funnily enough, when Lightning Fibre Ltd ran out of money in January, the administrator received an offer for £25Million from zzoomm which worked out at around £465 per premises passed.