Netomnia to Extend UK Broadband Reach via Openreach’s FTTP Network
One of the UK’s largest alternative broadband networks, Netomnia (Substantial Group), has revealed that they’re in the process of joining Openreach’s (BT) network in order to harness their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) products in areas where their network doesn’t yet reach or may be unlikely to reach in the future. But the initial reach will be limited.
The change of strategy, which on the surface seems to mirror Hyperoptic’s recent move (here), could help to give both a further boost to customer take-up and also solves the problem of what happens when existing customers on Netomnia’s own fibre (on-net) move house to a location outside their existing network area (off-net).
At present Netomnia’s own full fibre broadband network, which offers blistering speeds of up to 8000Mbps to consumers via ISPs like YouFibre, Brsk and others (and technically c.40Gbps to some businesses on-demand via 50G PON tech), already covers 2.7 million UK premises (375,000 customers). But as above, their on-net deployment will only take them to 5m by the end of 2027 and, even with consolidation, there will be gaps in their reach.
Advertisement
However, ISPreview has been told that their strategy is currently only planned to go as far as Netomnia’s existing reach allows within BT’s exchanges. Put another way, the operator has already connected their network to Openreach using CableLinks (Ethernet capacity), and they have a max presence within about 200 BT exchanges, so this will enable them to reach around 1.5 million extra incremental properties beyond their own fibre.
Just to be clear, this mixed on-net and off-net strategy will thus see Netomnia’s ISPs reaching 5 million premises with their own fibre and then the extra 1.5 million via Openreach (total reach of 6.5 million). Netomnia said they aren’t planning to wait for Openreach to launch their new XGS-PON based symmetric speed FTTP packages (speeds could go up to 3.3Gbps) and plan to launch their new approach around the end of 2025 or early 2026.
At present the operator doesn’t yet know whether they will go beyond 1.5m premises (c.200 BT exchanges) via Openreach’s network in the future, which may well depend upon how successful this strategy becomes. Netomnia also doesn’t seem worried about the fact that Openreach’s current FTTP products have much slower upload speeds and higher wholesale prices, so it will be interesting to see how they balance this for their consumer packages/prices.
Interestingly, Netomnia also hinted to ISPreview that Openreach may not be the only other third-party FTTP network they onboard with in the future, but it’s too early to talk about that with any certainty. Finally, Netomnia also confirmed via a related report on TheTimes (paywall) that their long-held plans for launching a UK Mobile service this year (here) will harness the combined Vodafone and Three UK (VodafoneThree) network.
Advertisement
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.
« Community Fibre Cuts Broadband Satisfaction Guarantee from 60 to 30 Days
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person’s legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
Another vote of confidence for the “dinosaur”, though I do wonder what their value add is compared to pure Openreach ISPs. It has already been pointed out but it does feel like the time when Virgin Media had a BTWholesale DSL product that only existed to prevent customers leaving by moving (or claiming to move) to a non cabled area.
At least their Openreach based customers will presumably have working IPv6!
No doubt Fanny Adams will be choking on his breakfast….LOL
It’s the ISP, not Openreach that decides whether you get IPV6 or not. There are ISPs on Openreach that do & those that don’t.
Wifi 7 equipment as standard instead of a £10 add on would add value
Dave – someone claiming to be “Jeremy” (Chelot) has stated here before that Netomnia’s IPv6 issues stem from an “OLT bug”. Hence my snark in regards to how OR’s OLTs don’t seem to have this problem.
Fanny can see why they are doing this for subscribers who move house to non-native Netomnia area or infill for areas yet to go to Netomnia.
Not sure they can offer symmetric services on this though, as the legacy BT FTTP is still GPON, and Netomnia are 50PON in their network. Don’t think they can put Netomnia kit in the BT network as such, as those BT fibres will already be going to GPON kit. Willing for someone who knows more on this to confirm.
Maybe learn a little more about how it works before calling anyone’s FTTP ‘legacy’?
‘Not sure they can offer symmetric services on this though, as the legacy BT FTTP is still GPON, and Netomnia are 50PON in their network.’
They can’t. They have to buy the same products everyone else does, price list available on Openreach website.
How much of Netomnia’s network has 50GPON running on it right now? You seem to be in the know so please educate us. 100% XGSPON but you mentioned 50GPON like it’s a routine thing available all over.
Hello Polish Poler, your usual happy self I see. Not limited to just me as you have had bile for others on this thread alone today.
Actually the news stories have been on here and I’m sure Jeremy said in an interview about the network being 50PON. They don’t offer products higher than 8gbps though at the moment.
And I was factual, BT’s GPON is a legacy product as overtaken by most other operators with at least XGS-PON or better. You may not have liked it, but it is true. Even VM deployed XGS-PON with NexFibre.
All you had to comment on was the piece about being forced to use GPON which is what I had said I thought anyway.
Just amused by your usual nonsense.
As I’ve said many times the network doesn’t have 50GPON lit everywhere, there isn’t enough of that equipment in existence to do that short of using Huawei which isn’t going to be a thing in the UK.
If you have a look at Netomnia’s own wholesale page at https://www.netomnia.com/news/netomnia-launches-b2b-wholesale-platform/ you should be able to see:
‘Built on XGS-PON and ready for 50G-PON’
Still if you know something Netomnia don’t as I said please educate us.
‘Legacy’ usually means something is going to be hard to replace or upgrade. Line cards and transceivers aren’t difficult, the coexistence elements are already there. No FTTP network built well is ‘legacy’ it can all be trivially upgraded by changing the stuff either side.
Your Virgin Media HFC, however…
So what they’re saying is, in areas where they haven’t yet built their network but are served by Openreach FTTP, customers would be able to go to YouFibre for Openreach FTTP services? What happens if they then build their own network in that area, would customers be able to upgrade to XGS-PON based services easily?
Presumably at contract renewal they would swap over.
Why wait for the contract renewal? Given the OR circuits will be on a max 12 month term, as soon as this contract expires I’d expect Netomnia to switch to their on-net circuit behind the scenes and without having to visit the customer.
Immediate reduction in cost to serve.
@Grumpy Old Man
Could it be done behind the scenes?
Wouldn’t they need to fit a new OLT to replace the OR one?
it’d be a complete new install. There is no (legal) way for Netomnia or any altnet to use OR’s cabling or ONT in the way the copper world had with LLU.
It is literally no different to the circumstance that the likes of Zen, Sky or Vodafone face if Cityfibre set up shop in an Openreach FTTP area and they want to get their customers onto that cheaper network. If the customer is happy with the price and performance of their existing service, what incentive do they have for another disruptive installation?
Similarly Openreach faces that problem itself as it wants to get rid of copper services.
Only if they are in the fibre handover exchange
“Netomnia also hinted to ISPreview that Openreach may not be the only other third-party FTTP network they onboard with in the future”. The most obvious candidate would be CityFibre as they don’t seem to have much overbuild with them. It would seem even more sensible if both companies could provision through each others networks, that would effectively bring CityFibre closer to their stated 8 million premises aim.
This is looking and sounding a lot like the cable network consolidation of the 90’s that gave rise to Virgin Media. First there’s joining separate networks, then merging, then repeat that a few times until you’ve got everything under one roof.
By that standard Zen, Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk, etc have started consolidating into Openreach.
Telecomms companies purchase services from one another.
This could be fruitful in terms of getting customers onboard prior to rolling out their own build, then converting when ready.. If their build is slowing down, this could be a nice middle ground which protects them a bit.
Their build in NI into new towns based on their plan for 2025 seems to be slower than expected.
@Doireman: Regarding your comment about the Netomnia build in NI, i also was wondering why they don’t seem to have started in Antrim and Ballymena to name but two, as was scheduled for 2025 on their website. Perhaps this new venture announced today will supersede their own rollout. No sign of any build in NI at the moment, again according to their website.
Your name on this site suggests you may live in Derry/LondonDerry, which seems to be reasonably covered by Netomnia, although like most Altnet builds some areas will probably be left out. This announcement may help the consumers not covered by Netomnia at this stage.
I can understand why they are doing it, I knew BTIvor would be gloating over this, his shares may rise because of it.
If we had dark fibre in this country in the first place, run by a non-profit-making company or something like that, then we would not have the problem we have now.
But this is U.K, we take two steps forwards and then 5 backwards
Sadly it is too late now to bother with dark fibre, unless we get one company to take over everything that is in the ground, and I don’t mean anything to do with Bloated Toad either.
It’s not going to do anything to speak of for share prices. Given the nonsense aimed at the person some gloating seems fair. Can’t take it? Don’t give it.
Bizarre. Who would have paid for the non-profit making dark fibre to be installed?
We wouldn’t have this problem because it would never have happened.
@125us, by all accounts the water company supplying water to me is a non-profit-making company, so why not have it for fibre?
Non-profit, means all profits goes back into the business, no shareholders. It could have been done years ago.
Maybe not sell BT off in the first place, but Thatcher and the Tories wanted to get rid of everything and now we the public are paying for it, dearly
Are you trying to claim the telecom services have become more expensive and less available since privatisation? Bold claim.
Telecoms is pretty much the sole example of a privatisation working well for customers.
I as you again – who would have invested in a not for profit company rolling out a national network with no prospect of making a return?
BT’s network in the 70s was woefully under capacity and out of date because government starved it of investment funds. Every penny in revenue it received went straight to the exchequer.
Telecoms is not the sole example. Privatization always works better because the government is inefficient by design
10 years ago boris bikes were widely used throughout London. The scheme has now been completely made obsolete by lime bikes
@125us Yes I can remember in late 70’s my parents had to wait months to get a phone line installed because they were waiting for new numbers to be issued which presumably meant having extra Strowger exchange equipment installed.
@John Privatisation always works better? I doubt whether many Thames Water customers are saying that right now and the railways have it got into such a mess they are essentially being renationalised. It’s nonsense to suggest one system always works better than another.
The only nonsense to believe in government fairies
The problem with water is cronyism because it is a government controlled monopoly. Zero reservoirs built in last decades, leakage amounts are insane, massive bonuses to executives, no incentive to do anything
The problem with rail again, more cronyism and added on the union mafias and even corrupt taxpayer spending. Japan has a privatized industry and they are so confident that the companies themselves are publicly traded. Trains are ALWAYS on time, don’t cost more than flights, are ultra clean, safe and pleasant to be in. They also don’t rely on corrupt government crony contracts, like their latest maglev line costs more than 90% less than one mile of the completely useless and redundant HS2
Funny you mention Japan, John. Their water supply may locally be privatised but, similar to our electricity grid, the body they buy water from, devoted to managing the national supply is public sector.
@Ad47uk:
“Non-profit, means all profits goes back into the business, no shareholders. It could have been done years ago.”
If you really believe that, it is fully within your power to get started and set up such a business. I suspect, however, that you would soon get a harsh lesson in why such businesses are few and far between.
A lot of people make pronouncements on economic policy who do not understand what they are talking about. Successful businesses tend to be far better informed. Your real problem is that you have bought into the narrative that profit is wrong. While that philosophy continues to dominate the UK will continue to decline.
already ready for the sellout?
ah lovely, their customers will be back to asymmetric in no time
I’m not sure what you mean. They’ve bought the same products from Openreach as Sky and Vodafone. I’m pretty confident BT aren’t buying either of them any time soon.
Think you are right, but I’d rather BT buy them than VM, and that’s from Fanny’s mouth. At least BT wholesale.