Altnet Broadband Operator Freedom Fibre to Suffer UK Job Losses UPDATE

Alternative network provider Freedom Fibre (Lila Connect), which have so far grown their FTTP based gigabit broadband network to cover 315,000 premises (Nov 2024) across parts of Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Essex, has over the past week notified staff of more redundancies.

The operator, which originally aspired to cover 2 million premises across England and Wales with their full fibre network, has gone through quite a few changes over the past couple of years. For example, last year saw the completion of their merger with InfraBridge-backed VX UK Holdings ltd / VXFIBER (here), but this was recently followed by the loss of their £43m Project Gigabit contract for 15,000 rural premises in Cheshire (here).

Suffice to say that the operator, which still retains the £24m Project Gigabit contract for “around” 12,000 hard-to-reach rural homes in North Shropshire (here), has some challenges to deal with. But at the same time they’ll also still been feeling many of the same strains as other network builders, not least with respect to rising build costs, high interest rates (this also makes securing new funding more difficult) and competition.

The ideal solution would perhaps have been to either secure a fresh round of funding or to be consolidated by a larger player, but so far neither appears to have materialised. In that sense it’s not surprising that, given the difficult environment, ISPreview last week started to spot a good number of employees, mostly from Freedom Fibre’s network build team, suddenly announcing that they’ve been put on notice of redundancy.

As it stands, LinkedIn is littered with many posts from Freedom Fibre’s employees, all of which have suddenly been listed as #OpenToWork and tend to be copy and pasting a similar sort of message: “Hi everyone! I’m seeking a new role due to being placed at risk of redundancy and would appreciate your support. If you hear of any opportunities or just want to catch up, please send me a message or comment below. I’d love to reconnect.”

We have attempted to seek comment from Freedom Fibre, but have thus far not received a response, which could be either due to the redundancies or, more likely, the bank holiday weekend.

The service that Freedom Fibre provides is typically offered via wholesale to a variety of supporting broadband ISPs, such as TalkTalk, iDNET, Home Telecom, Fusion Fibre Group, Squirrel Internet, Yayzi etc. The company’s most recent accounts (here) reveal that their revenues grew by 114% to total £623,185 in 2023 (up from £291k in 2022) on capital expenditure of £30.69m (up by 50% from £20.49m) and a total loss for the year of -£12.65m (vs -£7m).

Like many other smaller players in this market, Freedom Fibre may now be having to focus more of their efforts upon commercialisation (growing take-up) than build – something that may be difficult as they still have a Project Gigabit contract to deliver.

UPDATE 6th May 2025 @ 8:49am

We’ve had a response from Freedom Fibre.

A spokesperson for Freedom Fibre said:

“Freedom Fibre’s aim is for our people, our partners, and our suppliers to work together with the common purpose; to make full-fibre, high-speed broadband available to everyone, at a price that is affordable. With our knowledge and expertise, we have innovated and challenged conventional thinking to deliver an inclusive, high-speed fibre infrastructure.

Freedom Fibre is shifting its focus to move to a digital-first operating model through the introduction of leading-edge platforms, which will enhance customer service at reduced costs. This shift will involve a strategic reorganisation which may result in some redundancies.

Freedom Fibre continues to engage is strategic growth opportunities through mergers and acquisitions.”