Broadband Altnet Fusion Fibre Hit by Winding Up Petition from UK HMRC UPDATE

Alternative network builder and UK broadband ISP Fusion Fibre Group (formerly FACTCO), which has built their own full fibre (FTTP) networks across a number of rural communities, has suffered a blow after HMRC filed a winding-up petition against the business on 29th July 2026.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the process. A Winding Up Petition (WUP) is a legal action that is usually taken by a creditor or creditors, which in this case appears to be the UK tax authority – HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), against a company that owes them money. Such petitions are an expensive approach and so are usually only considered as a last resort (e.g. when all other approaches to settle a debt have failed).

At the time of writing it’s not clear how big the problem is or whether it can be resolved, but it’s well known that many of the UK’s altnets have been experiencing significant economic strains due to issues like rising build costs, competition and high interest rates.

Securing fresh funding has thus become more challenging and so a lot of altnets have stopped or slowed their network builds in order to focus more on commercialisation, while in many cases also hoping for some favourable consolidation deals to emerge. In this case Fusion Fibre are one of the market’s smaller players and their accounts are quite short, which makes it difficult to get a sense of their future strategy.

ISPreview has contacted the provider for comment, but we’ve yet to receive a response. The latest development also appears to have occurred just before the provider started suffering from a protracted service outage on Sunday (here), which is presently ongoing. But there’s currently no evidence to show the two events are linked.

Take note that Fusion Fibre also sells some broadband services via other altnets (off-net), including CityFibre, Freedom Fibre, FullFibre, ITS Technology.

UPDATE 4:31pm

We still haven’t heard from Fusion Fibre, but County Councillor Steven Bridgett has been in touch to share his views.

Cllr Steven Bridgett, County Councillor for the Rothbury Division, told ISPreview:

“For more than two years, I have been warning residents in the Rothbury area not to sign up to Fusion Fibre’s broadband service because of a number of serious concerns I was aware of within the company. These included significant workforce layoffs, staff not being paid on time, the absence of 24/7 customer support, and the fact that there were no engineers based in the North East. That last point has proved particularly problematic during previous major outages, when the lack of locally based engineers made it far more difficult to restore services to residents in the Rothbury area.

I also raised these concerns directly with Building Digital UK (BDUK), but my warnings were ignored. This is particularly concerning given that the Rothbury contract has still not been completed, yet BDUK has continued to release public voucher funding to Fusion Fibre. Despite these ongoing issues, Fusion has continued to encourage residents in Rothbury to sign up to its services, as recently as last week. Some of the contracts being offered appear to be commercially unsustainable and seem designed simply to attract new customers. As the saying goes, if something looks too good to be true, it usually is.

BDUK, working alongside Northumberland County Council, must now act quickly to ensure that households across Northumberland which rely on Fusion Fibre are not left without broadband, as residents in Cambois and Amble have reportedly been experiencing since Sunday.

Public money should not continue to be paid to a company that is subject to a winding-up petition from HM Revenue & Customs. Instead, BDUK should urgently identify and support an alternative provider capable of taking over Fusion Fibre’s network in Northumberland, particularly in Rothbury, to ensure residents are not left without a reliable broadband service.”

It’s worth noting that public funding is usually only released by BDUK once the connection to premises has actually been completed. In the meantime Fusion Fibre appears to have sent a new update to customers, which covers the HMRC petition and suggests they’re trying to get it removed:

Statement from Fusion Fibre:

“We can confirm that we were in dispute with HMRC regarding the application of a rebate of monies owed to us and being offset against the monies we owed to HMRC, we were also making regular payments to HMRC with regards to our liabilities. We therefore consider that no such petition should have been served and had no indication or prior warning from HMRC that it was going to be served. We are currently working with HMRC to resolve the dispute and have the petition removed.”