Nexfibre’s UK Full Fibre Broadband Build Covers 2 Million Premises UPDATE2
Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with ISP partner Virgin Media (VMO2) and uses the same build teams, has today revealed that the roll-out of their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network has reached its coverage target of 2 million premises on time and is now moving on with the next phase.
Just to recap. Back in 2022 Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners setup nexfibre as a new £4.5bn joint venture (here), which aims to deploy an open access (wholesale) full fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.
The operator previously reported that their full fibre network had been built to 1,557,000 premises as ‘Ready for Service’ at the end of October 2024 (here), which means that they’ve managed to add around 440,000 additional premises over the last two months. But it’s not clear from today’s announcement whether this figure now includes the 2023 acquisition of Upp and its c.175,000 premises.
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“The business has delivered its network to more premises than any other fibre provider in 2024, except for the incumbent [Openreach], which makes it the UK’s second largest alternative network provider,” said nexfibre’s announcement today. But in fairness, CityFibre’s rival FTTP network has already reached 4 million premises, and we’re certain that Netomnia (YouFibre) has also just passed the 2 million premises mark. Hyperoptic aren’t far behind the 2 million figure, either, but their roll-out has slowed.
Rajiv Datta, Chief Executive Officer of nexfibre, said:
“Reaching two million premises is testament to the dedication of our team and the support of our partners and investors. It reflects our commitment to building a network that prioritises underserved communities and creates a real and lasting impact – most of all by driving economic growth and improving living standards across the UK.
This is an outstanding achievement in just two years of operation – making nexfibre the UK’s second largest alternative network. However, our work is far from done. Our mission is to be part of a network platform that drives sustainable, nationwide competition, provides a genuine alternative to Openreach, and transforms access to broadband across the country.”
Sadly, today’s announcement, while extremely positive, doesn’t include a specific build target for the coming year. But given their progress and the future targets, it’s not unreasonable to expect them to do over 1 million premises during the next 12-months as well.
UPDATE 10:18am
Nexfibre has today informed ISPreview that, as the Upp migration exercise is expected to “reach its conclusion in the coming weeks“, the 2 million does include “some” of the Upp homes. But we expect to get a fuller update shortly.
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UPDATE 4:17pm
Netomnia have just kindly confirmed that their network now covers 2,075,000 premises, which would seem to have stolen a bit of the thunder from nexfibre’s boast.
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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Service useless without modem mode on the HUB5X.
I wouldn’t want to use their hub as a router as far too basic and insecure in my view as does not support DNS OVER TLS and DNSSEC and router end point detection. Many other functions not supported too.
Might be in a better position once we start seeing some other ISPs selling at scale (not trial) via the same network, with better routers.
I agree. Where broadband was once a service that ended at your master socket it now increasingly includes a router, of varying quality, and often a mesh system, though that’s often at extra cost.
I think that useless is a bit harsh. It may not be something that you’d personally take or recommend but there are plenty of people that just want an Internet connection at home for their technically illiterate usage.
Plenty of us have bypassed it with an sfp+ module! No hub5x at all here 🙂
Whilst their original target wasn’t meant to overbuild the existing cable network, I know they have been overbuilding cable with FTTP, and i would imagine the 2m update includes this upgraded network rather than all being new build.
A slight overlap is probably inevitable with these things. But Virgin Media already have their own XGS-PON upgrade program ongoing for coax (HFC) areas, so there’s no sense in overbuilding twice within the same network.
There is no nexfibre overbuild of VM Cable
VM are overbuilding their own network with fttp, this is not related to nexfibre in any way.
This year’s builds have not yet been given the go ahead to start.
Nexfibre is available in our area, but until I can order it through IDNet, I’m not interested. I wouldn’t touch Virgin with a barge pole.
Used them once; never again.
Been in this for a year now. There was a lot of teething problems for first 6 months but is only available fttp in the village. Now 100% can’t fault it. Always max speed test 2.1/2.1 @2ms yes 2ms!
Still no news on their wholesale then?
Can’t verify them, but supposedly people have managed to get modem mode working on the 5x.
Yes that is true. Also people have managed to bypass the SH5x completely with an ONT SFP that clones the 5x credentials
As of today, no work has been approved, few contractors on the projects have started some small quiet work there and there… builds are going bad…