Virgin Media UK Create Fixed Wholesale Broadband Unit for Consumer and Business

Broadband network operator and retail ISP Virgin Media (O2) has this morning announced the creation of a single dedicated Fixed Wholesale unit, which will bring together their consumer and business facing wholesale teams under one roof. This will allow rival ISPs to access their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) network – currently available to 7 million premises.

Regular readers might recall that VMO2’s long-held plan for opening up their existing fixed residential broadband ISP network in the UK to wholesale (here) – via a new entity (NetCo) – recently suffered a blow after co-parent Telefónica launched a wider Strategic Review of the business. The CEO of Telefónica, Marc Murtra, later confirmed that the NetCo plan had effectively been scrapped (here).

However, the approach being taken today does not appear to rely upon the creation of a new NetCo entity, and instead establishes a new in-house unit within the existing company. The new business unit will combine the current B2B2C and B2B2B teams under one leadership structure to create a focused and simplified fixed wholesale division.

“It will offer a joined-up, single sales engine and interface for a wide mix of partners and customers with the scale, speed and service to challenge the wholesale market,” said the announcement. “Central to the new business unit’s strategy will be the creation of a differentiated offering that provides a compelling alternative to the status quo in the fixed wholesale market. This will be underpinned by a newly developed digital-first system architecture and optimised customer journeys and processes.”

Much as we expected from the original NetCo plan, the new wholesale unit will only offer access to premises covered by their new 10Gbps capable XGS-PON based full fibre (FTTP) broadband network, including the combined reach of nexfibre and Virgin Media. The latter currently aims to upgrade all of their Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) areas to be covered by FTTP come 2028, but at present the combined reach is still a respectable 7 million premises.

The new unit aims to “support a full range of wholesale partners across ISPs, resellers and enterprise carriers“. By bringing together both consumer and business wholesale teams under one roof, the new unit also hopes to accelerate delivery timelines and reduce complexity for partners.

This will all fall under the direction of Julie Agnew, MD of Fixed Wholesale and Customer Delivery. Reporting to Julie, Diego Tedesco has been appointed Executive Director of Fixed Wholesale.

Julie Agnew, MD of Fixed Wholesale & Customer Delivery at VMO2, added:

“With Virgin Media O2 and nexfibre’s combined fibre footprint already passing more than 7 million premises and our network upgrade activity continuing at pace , we’re laying the foundation for the next wave of connectivity innovation across the UK. By bringing together our wholesale teams, underpinned with decades of expertise, nationwide field capabilities and a scaled footprint, our team is uniquely well-positioned and ready to support our wholesale partners and offer a viable alternative to the status quo.”

With ongoing investment across its fixed and mobile networks, VMO2 believes itself to be well-positioned to deliver “new commercial models for broadband and mobile services in the business and consumer markets“. But in order to provide truly effective competition they will need to show that they can attract support from major broadband rivals in the retail space, other than those that already exist under their own group.

Potential ISP partners will be looking to be treated fairly (wholesale agreements), which is always a tricky thing to balance vs the desire by some for exclusivity agreements. The proposition must also be competitive with the dedicated wholesale platforms from the likes of CityFibre and the regulated Openreach, while also making it all as easy to harness as possible.

One potential issue here is that of Virgin Media’s own retail broadband pricing, particularly its high out-of-contract rates, which remain relatively steep compared to a lot of other FTTP providers. The new packages from giffgaff appear to indicate that VMO2 can bridge this gap. But the catch is that by doing so they may end up seeing wholesale partners cannibalising from Virgin Media’s existing retail base. Retail vs wholesale is thus a hard thing for VMO2 to balance.