Bentry Infrastructure reveal expansion of RunFibre’s UK FTTP broadband network

The new Bentry Infrastructure Group (BIG) has today revealed to ISPreview that, after having recently acquired alternative network provider RunFibre from FibreNova, they’re investing in a “major commercial expansion” of full fibre broadband to reach locations across the North West, Midlands and London in England – building at a rate of 3,000 premises per month.

Regular readers may recall the RunFibre had previously only deployed a small amount of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure across rural parts of South Gloucestershire (England) and was a relatively minor network, passing just 1,500 premises back in August 2024 – part supported by the government’s Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS).

However, much as we reported last month, the now BIG owned FibreNova had recently been spotted building a new FTTP network in West Kirby (Merseyside), Pennington Wharf (Leigh Wigan) and Lowton (Wigan). RunFibre’s engineers had similarly also been seen doing the same in the Worcestershire village of Romsley, as well as the odd other location; this despite the fact that the GBVS is slowly coming to an end.

At the time we remarked that the group had recently hired various senior leaders and seemed to be laying the ground work for a much bigger network expansion in the future – a risky thing to do given the current climate of industry instability (rising build costs, high interest rates and competition has pushed many networks to slow or stop building new fibre). But until now we hadn’t been able to get anything official from BIG itself.

Bentry has now confirmed to us that they’re in the early stages of a “major commercial expansion” of their new full fibre network – initially focusing on three strategic regions: the North West, Midlands and London. At present this is already said to be deploying at a rate of approximately 3,000 premises per month, which explains all the fresh street works activity we’ve recently been seeing.

“The investment forms part of BIG’s long-term strategy to build sustainable, high-quality regional fibre networks in areas where there is clear demand from residents, businesses and communities,” said the announcement, before adding that “Run Fibre’s strategy is based on building deep regional clusters rather than simply pursuing individual premises or isolated build opportunities“. This suggests a wider focus than RunFibre originally adopted.

Under this approach, each area will be assessed not only for residential broadband demand, but also for its wider digital opportunity. This includes businesses, multi-dwelling units, developers, new-build developments, community organisations and other potential users of the infrastructure. “The objective is simple: build the network, understand the community and connect what matters,” explained BIG.

Neil Woolerton, Group CEO of Bentry Infrastructure Group, told ISPreview:

“Run Fibre represents exactly the type of infrastructure business we want to build within BIG.

Our strategy is not simply about passing as many premises as possible. We want to build valuable regional networks in communities where we can establish genuine demand, engage locally and create infrastructure that supports residents, businesses and the wider digital economy.

With significant backing from Bentry Capital, we now have the funding, management capability and delivery platform to accelerate that strategy.

We are already building at around 3,000 premises every month and our focus now is on expanding our commercial footprint across the North West, Midlands and London.

We believe there remains a significant opportunity for an agile, well-capitalised operator that combines national capability with a genuinely local approach.”

Sadly Bentry hasn’t yet revealed precisely how much “significant investment capital” they’re committing to their “network construction and long-term growth” plans, although their model aims to bring together capital, infrastructure expertise, technology, commercial capability and experienced management “under a single group structure” (vertical integration currently seems to be the order of the day here).

The group will of course be moving into a sector under considerable strain, where a large part of the focus has switched from build to growing scale via consolidation (M&A). Despite this, BIG believes their combination of private capital, regional density, local engagement and disciplined infrastructure delivery will provide a “sustainable model for the next phase of the UK fibre market“; others have of course done this before, yet still ended up in difficulty.

Nevertheless, the new ownership marks a significant step in Run Fibre’s development from a smaller regional operator and into a substantially larger commercially focused infrastructure business. The operator’s commercial build programme is currently planned to run through 2026 and 2027, with greater expansion being prepared for the next phase, although we’ve yet to see a clear roll-out plan or coverage targets.

“The fibre market is entering its next phase. The winners will not simply be those that built the fastest, but those that built in the right places, created genuine customer demand and developed networks with sustainable long-term economics,” said Neil. “We have the capital, the capability and the ambition to build a significant regional fibre platform — but we will do it intelligently, commercially and in partnership with the communities we serve.”