Survey Claims UK Alternative Broadband Networks Still Confident of Future
A new survey of 300 alternative networks, ISPs, suppliers and other companies has found that 83% of altnet decision makers believe their companies will grow over the next year, while 77% said they are planning to increase their investment in the coming 12 months. Similarly, 70% believe the forthcoming consolidation will have a positive impact.
Most alternative broadband networks (altnets) across the market are currently looking at consolidation as a way of balancing against the difficult market conditions that have arisen over the past few years. Much of this has been driven by high interest rates, rising build costs and strong competition – all of which is making it hard to raise fresh investment and expand networks.
In fact, we’ve already seen this squeeze resulting in quite a few sizeable consolidation agreements taking place (e.g. Netomnia + Brsk and CityFibre + Lit Fibre and Connexin etc.), and many industry observers expect the current crop of c.80 altnets to shrink down into a market dominated by just a handful or two of players over the coming years.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, the altnets that have yet to consolidate are often switching their strategies from network build to greater commercialisation, which means putting more effort into growing their customer base (inc. quite a few redundancies as the workforce is refocused). But despite all this, the new Altnet Confidence Index 2025 from Proactive International PR and Censuswide indicates that many altnets remain optimistic.
James Page, Proactive International PR CEO, said:
“There has been a view for some time now that the UK’s alternative broadband sector was in decline. With investors demanding to see returns on their investment and customers’ unwillingness to pay substantially higher prices for higher speed services, the future seemed to consist only of mergers, acquisitions and a sharply diminishing number of companies remaining in the market … We wanted to gauge how the sector was feeling – and the results are surprising.”
Summary of Key Results
➤ 23% of respondents are predicting significant growth and, when looking ahead to 5 years, 77% anticipate growth over that time.
➤ ‘Sustainability’ was the biggest priority for investment (39%), even above network build, on which 25% of respondents planned to spend.
➤ ‘Technological advancements’ were cited as the biggest driver by 45% of respondents, while ‘Private equity and investor interest’ and ‘Increased demand for high-speed internet’ each gave 35% of professionals reason to be positive. Other reasons given included ‘Competitive differentiation and market gaps’ (33%), ‘Fibre rollout and infrastructure expansion’ (33%) and ‘Resilience of the industry’ (30%).
➤ ‘Rising operational costs’ still worry 37% of respondents, as do ‘Increased regulatory pressures.’ A further 31% of respondents said ‘Consolidation of smaller players reducing opportunities’ was a concern.
ISPreview has similarly noted a great deal of positivity coming from altnets across the sector, although it’s not uncommon for even troubled businesses to continue to accentuate the positives – often right up until the moment they no longer exist as an independent entity. But it’s worth considering that the feedback might have been quite different if the survey had focused on the engineers and wider workforce, those who tend to suffer the most when strategies change and builds slow.
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.
« Ofcom UK Confirm Changes to 3.9GHz Band for 5G Mobile and Wireless Broadband
Does being acquired by CityFibre count as growth?
It does for City Fibre!
Your scepticism is palpable Mark. I am confident that we won’t end up going back to the Openreach/VMO2 duopoly, but there is no doubt the altnets are unlikely to be the money spinning machine that was anticipated with many investors being lucky to get back what they put in.
The survey was given to the AltNets to answer, so they arent going to answer “we expect no growth or return”. No matter their answers the reality is unfolding very few altnets turn a profit. The only ones likely to survive will be VMO2 as
have telecoms experience a and existing network. Then Cityfibre will persevere for many years as it has done well to build so much. I do not see it lasting forever. VMO2 will likely acquire it at some stage even if in decades time. As cityfibre take up is poor and won’t be sustainable in long run.
Some smaller rurally aimed networks will also do well for now. But once build is completed they won’t be sustainable as their lack of customer base won’t ever pay back their revenue and will result in liquidation and being bough cheap by the bigger fish. Anyone who doesnt think this will happen doesnt realise how capitalism works.
We should’ve nationalised Openreach and we’d all have fibre alot sooner. Rather than funding 80 different companies to build the same road over and over.
Nationalisation does not work – it is what made a mess of BT in the first place.
Now Cf have the new cash, I think is probably a few CEO’s waiting for the acquisition.
What is the attraction for an altnet CEO to be acquired by CF other than a nice exit package? CF only want the customers and the network assets. CF can only afford to do deals that improve their income to debt ratio.
They might frow but will the growth be profitable
My view is there will be considerable consolidation in the market. WE saw it with Cable and similar gas happened with ISP’s there are now far fewer around
There is nothing like starting a Friday with a good laugh, is there?
This survey seems designed as an attempt to make new/potential Altnet Investors overlook the obvious and glaring fact that current Altnet Investors are highly likely to make substantial losses on their previous/current investment in the industry as consolidation occurs.
I question the validity of the findings given that the survey was conducted amongst “… altnet decision makers, including ISPs, network operators, and equipment and technology vendors …”.
Vendors are going to have a very different outlook to the actual service providers – i.e the network providers amongst the AltNets.
We can only wait and see, none of us can see into the future and maybe that is a good thing. I will keep with Zzoomm as long as they offer a decent service with a price I like, or as long as I stay in an area where they are available, or as long as they keep going.
You only need to look at the numbers to see where the sector is heading. There is no mystery about that.