Netomnia to Expand Wholesale FTTP Broadband to More UK ISPs as New MD Appointed
Network operator Netomnia (Brsk, Youfibre), which has so far rolled out their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network to cover 2.56 million UK homes (inc. 341,000 customers), has appointed industry veteran Matthew Skipsey to be its new Managing Director (MD) of wholesale ahead of an expected adoption by more ISPs.
At present Netomnia (Substantial Group), which recently became the first network operator to adopt 50Gbps (50G -PON) broadband technology (here), is aiming to expand the reach of their full fibre network to 3 million premises by the end of 2025 and then 5 million by the end of 2027 (inc. 1 million customers by 2028). The service is currently available across parts of over 90 UK cities and towns.
However, in terms of wholesale, the company has so far tended to remain a bit more vertically integrated by only selling packages to consumers and businesses via ISPs that are a part of the same group (Youfibre and Brsk). But ISPreview are now aware of several third-party retail ISPs that will imminently be joining this network as Netomnia moves to grow their focus on wholesale.
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The latest sign of all this stems from the company’s decision to appoint industry veteran Matthew Skipsey to be their new MD of Wholesale. Matthew was previously the Network Strategy Director at All Points Fibre Networks (APFN) and the Co-founder, CTO & Head of Giganet before that. Going back further, he also helped to found Wessex Internet and held various senior positions at M12 Solutions.
Matthew Skipsey said:
“I’m delighted to join Netomnia as Managing Director of Wholesale.
I’ve always respected Netomnia and the wider Substantial Group companies. They continue to achieve some impressive numbers; including a capital-efficient build programme, fastest Alt-Net build and subscriber acquisition rate, powerful network and proudly are the second-largest Alt-Net in the UK. None of this would be possible without the exceptional people behind it.
I’m excited to lead Netomnia’s Wholesale division, which provides open access to Netomnia’s 2.56+ million premises for B2C & B2B full-fibre broadband, Ethernet and dark fibre opportunities. The network is on track to reach 3 million premises by the end of 2025, with plans to scale to 5 million by 2027.
I’d like to thank my ex colleagues at APFN, Fern Fibre, Octopus Investments and those from the original Giganet, M12, and Wessex Internet days as well as key suppliers who have supported me throughout my career in telecoms.
The next chapter will be very exciting and I can’t wait to get started!”
A stronger push into wholesale makes sense for an alternative network operator in Netomnia’s position, although its ability to break into this market may be constrained so long as it also continues to act as a competitor to its own future partners by running its own retail providers alongside them (conflict of interest). On the other hand, the operator’s growing network coverage and blistering speeds will be very attractive to a lot of ISPs.
At this stage we don’t yet know how much flexibility third-party ISPs on this network will have to differentiate their products from that of the existing group providers, but we suspect that the prices and package speeds will initially be similar to those offered by Youfibre and brsk.
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.
It will send the BT fan boys into therapy again though, as will make Netomnia more likely to succeed by opening up other well known brands. There is probably whispering going on over at Sky Towers, particularly as Netomnia are in areas that CF do not operate in where they already participate in wholesale agreement.
These comments are just weird.
Lots of people in the industry have worked for large players and small players. We don’t hate each other, we’re all just trying to compete. There are no fights in pub car parks. When we move company for a promotion or a fresh challenge we leave friends behind and make new ones, This isn’t the premiership or F1, it’s just business.
BT does what is rational for BT with the set of cards it has to play. Netomnia will do the same. And Sky and TalkTalk and Community Fibre and KCom and every other player.
The idea that we’re all deadly enemies or that we have fans is bizarre. It’s just humans doing their jobs to the best of their abilities in the situations they find themselves in.
No-one needs therapy, no-one is seething.. it’s not that kind of industry and it mostly doesn’t attract those kinds of people. Four decades in, I’ve spent my career with mostly thoughtful, diligent, hard-working people. I don’t understand your hysteria or your baiting of people. It’s a little bit childish.
I compete with some big players – like BT, like Virgin – and smaller ones – like Hey Broadband and Grain. I’ve also worked at some of those places at different points in my career. There is no animosity or hatred, even if we sometimes collectively play on our rival status in our marketing.
‘No-one needs therapy, no-one is seething.. it’s not that kind of industry and it mostly doesn’t attract those kinds of people.’
This. There are passionate people and some very driven entrepreneurs however it’s mostly professional rivalry, nothing is personal. It’s often pretty cooperative. Openreach and Virgin Media are seen as competition, and treated with respect as for any shortcomings they are juggernauts.
Thanks for an idea though.
‘FANNY ADAMS’ / anonymous / whomever, I’d like to invite you to a regular meeting of networkers so that you can see a little bit of the reality here and get an idea just how absurd this attitude is to those who work in the industry. Obviously won’t go into those details with the meeting, you can be a junior engineer for the day to avoid awkward questions.
Business is business, and that’s always the way Sky has been. It’s not called “cut throat business” for no reason.
And yes, stand by my comments whether you or others like it or not. Too many BT boot lickers on this forum that constantly bash new comers (ALTNETS). By all means bash them when they get something wrong (like hardly any engineers to fix service issues that BT is far superior at).
As a consumer I champion choice of providers that give services and prices the incumbent dinosaur can’t or doesn’t give. If BT was so good none of this would be a threat and everyone would be signed up to BT wouldn’t they? Currently, something like 6 MILLION+ customers are with non-Openreach based ISP’s.
And you think you are the only one who has had a career and dealt with large organisations? I’m not some spotty youth that’s never had a job or works for a back street outfit.
“I’m not some spotty youth that’s never had a job or works for a back street outfit”. Probably best if you don’t come on here behaving as if you are then.
“ISPreview are now aware of several third-party retail ISPs that will imminently be joining this network”
Spill the beans, I thought we liked leaks on this site
I’m also sometimes beholden to embargoes etc. If I leaked everything I was told in private, nobody would tell me anything, so there’s a balance to be maintained. You won’t have long to wait though.
Yes of course, very true.
I’d give you odds on that one of them will be Zen. Would be a great addition to their aggregator.
Yep, agree with Big Dave, Zen would seem likely, as I am sure post Zen interviews with Altnets that have been published on this site, they have had a good off the camera strategy and ideas chat 🙂
So does this mean there will be other options on Brsk besides Brsk? Slower than a granny on Morphine right now – only had it a month! 🙁
All they do is say run speed tests – and when you do they tell you all is fine If the test don’t prove peak time congestion (which during the summer holidays is all day every day) then I give up. And I am not the only one!
Thank god for FTTP backup lines (even the cheap ones)
Given this appointment, one wonders if Aquila will be the chosen platform for Netomnia’s move into wholesale.
And if not, where that leaves APFN’s strategy.
(Just realised that, for ever, I’ve thought it was Netomania, not Netomnia 🙂 )
APFN don’t even want to sell their own network apparently. Their ISP Cuckoo only offers me Openreach GPON speeds, despite APFN XGS-PON being live for the last 18 months. CityFibre XGS-PON areas check out OK, but areas I know where they are the only network are listed as unavailable.
@Dave
I wonder if they’ll swap then. APFN give up the networks they have, and concentrate on being a wholesale aggregator – and Netomnia pick up the networks they’ve built.
Looking at TBB it looks like there is very little, if any overlap? The one I keep looking at for Netomnia is Full Fibre ltd though, as its another what, 400k connections and it looks like no overlap. It’d take them to their 3mill target by the end of 2025, now.
Will the IPV6 work for the others? Or Is it a Netomnia supplied issue?
Depends how the third party provide it.
Annoying thing about Netomnia is that they are literally down the street,300 yards manhole cover but they don’t supply fibre to my property.
Really frustrating and annoying how one half of the street get fibre but the other half does not.
One day I’ll hopefully get them to my street
Every build has to stop somewhere. Openreach cover nearby but not you?
With Netomnia they only build where they can gain access to Openreach PIA, if they can’t gain access to PIA, for instance if the Openreach infrastructure is direct dig (no ducts) then they will not build .
Netomnia will only install where PIA is easy enough for them and normally copy BT routing, with exception that they normally use their own branded pavement chambers. Sometimes this can mean the next street has it but one a few metres away doesn’t.
It doesn’t always mean they won’t do your address in the future but if the BT route was say across someone’s land (like the telephone cable already is) or required a new duct, then that would be too expensive and not quick for Netomnia to resolve so they would wait for BT to roll out and then use PIA which they pay BT for. They don’t seem to like using an alternative route into a road where there may be PIA because it would differ from the original BT routing for that road.