Fibrus launch UK pay TV service as broadband network covers 472,000 premises
Infracapital-backed alternative broadband network and ISP Fibrus, which has deployed their full fibre network across rural parts of Cumbria in England and Northern Ireland, has today announced the launch of their own Netgem PLEIO powered pay TV service and published a preview of their annual results showing revenues growing 53% to £45m.
At the time of writing the company’s full accounts haven’t yet been published, but Fibrus does provide plenty of useful details in their official summary of the latest results to the end of March 2026. Overall, the provider reported that they currently have 155,000 customers and their gigabit broadband network now covers 471,800 premises passed (customer penetration sits at just over 31%, which is up from 27.9% in 2025).
On the financial front, the altnet reported that they had grown annual revenues by 53% year-on-year to £45m (down from the 67% reported in 2025), while gross profit almost doubled from £16.7m in 2025 to £29.4m in 2026 and, following the business reaching EBITDA positive status earlier in 2025 (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation), they revealed positive EBITDA of £7.3m for the financial year (2025: £1.5m).
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The cost of building such infrastructure remains significant and as such it’s no surprise to find that Fibrus also reported a net loss for the year of £44m, which is happily a reduction on the previous year when they reported a net loss of £57.6m. Elsewhere, capital expenditure during the year was £93.6m, down by £14.3m from the prior year after they finished the Project Stratum build in N.Ireland.
Dominic Kearns, Fibrus co-Founder and CEO, said:
“Another year of tremendous growth and financial discipline has delivered a solid set of result for our business which continues to outperform expectations and its peers. Underlying earnings are increasing right on track and our team continues to deliver the business plan we developed just over 6 years ago.
Building critical infrastructure is capital intensive and I’m looking forward to seeing positive cash flows from the turn of the year. To date we’ve invested over £600m in our network. Fibrus has established itself as a trusted household name in the towns and villages that we operate in and those communities are rewarding us by joining our network in their thousands.”
On top of all this Fibrus has today become the latest retail broadband ISP to launch a live TV (Freely), streaming, and cloud gaming service via Netgem TV’s new 4K IPTV set-top-box and streaming platform – PLEIO, which can alternatively be purchased separately via Amazon for £99 (includes set-top-box, remote control, gamepad and 12-month premium content subscription).
“Fibrus TV is delivered through customers’ broadband connections, allowing customers to access free-to-air TV via Freely, without the need for a satellite dish or aerial. The package includes more than 100 live television channels, including BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and 5, plus over 150 additional streamed channels, streaming and entertainment apps from the Google Play Store, and a library of over 300+ cloud-based games,” said the announcement.
Colin Hutchinson, Managing Director of Fibrus, said:
“Over the past few years, we have built a Full Fibre network that brings reliable, high-speed connectivity to communities that have historically been underserved. As our customer base rapidly grows, Fibrus TV represents an expansion of our product offering, giving customers greater choice in how they access television and entertainment through their broadband connection.
This is an important milestone for the business and reflects how we are evolving our services in response to changing consumer habits and meet our customers’ needs.”
The internet provider said the new add-on TV service will launch next week, with prices starting at £7.99 per month (the normal subscription price is £9.99). Further details are expected to be made available on their fibrus.com/tv page in the near future (it wasn’t live when we tried).
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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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Why would you take this rather than buying a box? Or just use an aerial.
Its a freely box which is what is now popular and is in demand.
Billy Shears,
If you just take an aerial, you will no have:
1) more channels then just the live ones (100 live)
2) plus over 150 additional streamed channels,
3) more than 300 cloud-based games!
4) streaming and entertainment apps from the Google Play Store.
And is cheapper then buying the box isolatetly:
The internet provider said the new add-on TV service will launch next week, with prices starting at £7.99 per month (the normal subscription price is £9.99). Further details are expected to be made available on their fibrus.com/tv page in the near future.
Billy Shears,
If you just take an aerial, you will no have:
1) more channels then just the live ones (100 live)
2) plus over 150 additional streamed channels,
3) more than 300 cloud-based games!
4) streaming and entertainment apps from the Google Play Store.
And is cheapper then buying the box isolatetly:
The internet provider said the new add-on TV service will launch next week, with prices starting at £7.99 per month (the normal subscription price is £9.99). Further details are expected to be made available on their fibrus.com/tv page in the near future.
@petterson, you can buy it for £99 according to this report so in a fraction over 12 months you’ve paid for it, after that you’re a sucker. As for the 150 additional channels may I refer you to Bruce Springsteen’s “57 channels and nothing on”.
@Billy Shears, yep, £99 for the box and 12 months subscription for what ever they get, some games and a few more useless channels. They don’t really say what you get extra. Some fast channels and from what I have seen, fast channels are 99% useless.
I presume the unit is 24-month contract or may be 12 months, but what happens after that and you decide not to pay for it any more? Do they take the box back or do you keep it? If they take it back then it is bets to buy one.
@K, is it popular? A lot of TV sets have Freely in, but how many people are using it? I know of some that have reset the TV to Freeview only because Freely in their view is rubbish.
The problem with a lot of this stuff and the channels they have, most of them are rubbish and not worth having even for free.
Ad47uk:
Thats unusual as i know people that love it. Do you have freely? If not, then how would you know? Other people think its great. And if you dont have freely ad47uk, you can always add it to your current tv without buying a new tv.
@K,
How do I know what? I have seen Freely when I set up someone’s TV set, they had issues getting it to connect to their network, so asked me to help. Then I went back up a couple of weeks later to rest the TV back to Freely only. There are a few complaints about the refresh rater for sport. From what I saw of Freely I found it slower to change channels than Freeview and while I admit I did not see it for long, it did not impress me.
Looking at the quality people have watched over the years with stretched out pictures and other issues, I wonder how many people really know what great is.
I don’t have a TV licence, so no, I can’t add Freely, and even if I did have Tv licence, I would stick with Freeview. as it works and no need for extra. hardware, also the PLEIO, which is also what my ISP provides with their TV package, is Wi-fi only.
I have heard enough about Freely to not bother with it, plus what I have seen.
Very surprised that the Infracap group of Alt-Nets has not been brought – this would make sense for CF / Next.