WightFibre’s Broadband Gigabit Island Project Slowly Nears Completion
Alternative network provider WightFibre, which runs its own independent gigabit speed Full Fibre broadband (FTTP) network across the Isle of Wight (situated off the South Coast of Hampshire in England), has published their annual accounts to September 2025 and revealed that their fibre lines now cover c.90% of premises (74,000+) and they’re home to 28,000+ customers.
In case anybody has forgotten. The operator previously stated that they were expecting to have invested around £110m by 2030 as part of their ongoing “Gigabit Island Project”, which was aiming to extend their full fibre network to reach 96% coverage by the end of 2027 (c.80,000+ premises).
The latest results confirm that they’re slowly “nearing completion” of this major effort, which is despite facing plenty of competition from Openreach’s (BT) roll-out of competing FTTP technology. But 2026 will be a particularly notable year because it will see them celebrate “25 years of connecting the Isle of Wight” (here), originally starting as the Isle of Wight Cable and Telephone Company.
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Otherwise, the latest annual accounts show that the company delivered revenues of £9.158m (up 27% from £7.196m in 2024), although losses hit £19.32m (2024: £18.95m) and the company had net liabilities of £75.96m (2024: £56.64m). But the rate of customer acquisition is reported to be running “ahead of plan” with 36% penetration, which is a strong result given the competition on part of their network (retail price competition from rival ISPs is also a concern).
The other good news is that WightFibre delivered a full year of positive adjusted EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) of £951k (2024: -£673k), which has been helped by their revenue growth and recent cost control measures. The company, which is also home to 119 employees (all based at their Cowes HQ), will however need to keep an eye on those ongoing losses (a fair bit that is to be expected while they continue to build fibre).
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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Does WightFibre still offer CATV services?
I recall when Virgin Media acquired Smallworld, WightCable (as it was then) was then the only other CATV provider that hadn’t merged and become part of Virgin Media.