
Network operator AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN, Fern Trading) has today confirmed that they’ve sold the retail base of their last consumer broadband ISP, Brillband, to internet provider Olilo for an undisclosed sum. The move comes after APFN did the same with Cuckoo (sold to Onestream) earlier in the year (here).
Just to recap. The Glasgow-based full fibre (FTTP) broadband ISP Brillband was originally acquired by APFN back in October 2024 (here) and sells packages to homes over APFN’s wholesale platform. But the previous sale of Cuckoo’s retail base to another ISP did strongly indicate that Brillband’s days were also numbered.
The new deal reflects the “final stage” of APFN’s ongoing strategic move away from retail services, which follows the successful introduction of their aquila wholesale platform – this aggregates connectivity from several alternative broadband networks (including APFN’s own full fibre network) and makes them available to retail internet service providers.
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Existing Brillband customer contracts, pricing and broadband services will “continue to be honoured by Olilo“, with customers not required to take any action as part of the transfer. But over time this may change as those contracts reach their end and re-contracting deals can change.
Duncan Di Biase, Brillband, said:
“What this team built goes far beyond a network. They showed up every day for our customers with a level of care you rarely see in this industry, and I’m enormously proud of them. That’s the real legacy of Brillband.”
Liam Mulryan, CEO of Olilo, said:
“Brillband has built something really special, and we’re not coming in to rip everything up. The product, pricing, and contracts stay the same.
We’ve always tried to do broadband a bit differently. Clear costs, honest answers, proper support and no hiding behind jargon or small print. Broadband without the B.S. And yes, I was told to tone that down.
This is a massive moment for Olilo, but the most important thing is making sure Brillband members feel looked after from day one. We’re excited to build on what’s already there and give the community a proper long-term home.”
The most recent accounts for Brillband noted that the company made a total loss for the year ended 30th June 2025 of -£892.7k (2024: -£729.9k), which might have helped to drive APFN’s decision to get out of the retail business. Sadly, it’s unclear how many customers are impacted by this agreement, although Brillband was a fair bit smaller than Cuckoo (the latter is estimated to have had c.75k customers).
The base that has been sold to Olilo mostly reflects customers on Openreach and CityFibre’s national full fibre broadband networks.
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Well, that’s hilarious.
Brillband were advertising heavily on Facebook that they were about to launch 900Mbps symmetric in Cornwall, Devon and Somerset – the belief being that was the much-delayed resurrection of the former Jurassic Fibre network for new sales.
Presumably that’s not happening either. Former JFL addresses always showed “waitlist” when the Brillband wbsite was still accepting orders, even after the alleged 1st July launch.
Why Fern Fibre had kept a retail ISP in the otherwise-wholesale bit of the operation was always a mystery. Like so much of what they do, it must have seemed like a good idea at the time, for some reason.
APFN have to be one of the most confusing players in this space. Does this mean Olilo can sell on the APFN network footprint now?
Yes it does – https://consumer.olilo.co.uk/apfn
Lucky Brillband customers – they get moved to a highly rated ISP on their current contracts. I hope the Olilo team can deal with the sudden growth as they are very hands on with a personal touch. Best of luck to them.