{"id":47964,"date":"2026-09-16T11:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=47964"},"modified":"2026-09-16T11:05:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T10:05:48","slug":"zen-internet-ceo-reveals-state-of-the-uks-alternative-broadband-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/09\/zen-internet-ceo-reveals-state-of-the-uks-alternative-broadband-networks.html","title":{"rendered":"Zen Internet CEO reveals state of the UK’s alternative broadband networks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CEO of broadband ISP Zen Internet<\/a>, Richard Tang, has today published the seventh edition of his entertaining ‘Full Fibre Wacky Races<\/strong>‘ presentation, which summarises both his and the wider industry’s views of how the UK’s troubled market for alternative fixed broadband networks (altnets) has progressed and what the future may hold.<\/p>\n

Altnets have of course faced a troubled few years due to rising build costs, strong competition from rivals (i.e. overbuild and the challenges of growing take-up) and the difficulties of securing fresh investment during a protracted period of high interest rates. The situation has left the industry holding billions in debt and the need to make painful repayments on that.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> Check out our regularly updated Summary of UK Full Fibre Builds<\/strong><\/a> for more background and also our recent table of the Top Largest UK Full Fibre Networks<\/strong><\/a>.<\/div>\n

In response many altnets have stopped or slowed their network expansions in order to focus on commercialisation (i.e. growing take-up of what they’ve already built), albeit often more as a strategy to buy time and make themselves more attractive while seeking out consolidation partners to help grow scale.<\/p>\n

However, consolidation as a whole has been moving much slower than expected (ISPreview’s Altnet Consolidation Tracker<\/strong><\/a>), partly due to some operators harbouring unrealistic expectations of their underlying asset (network) values. Despite this we have seen a fair few normal consolidations taking place, but more recently we’ve also seen the odd deal occurring post-administration and after investors took a big hit (e.g. here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The longer consolidation takes to fully materialise, the greater the chance of less favourable outcomes for investors like the example above, which can perhaps also be seen in how investors for G.Network<\/a> (here<\/a>), toob<\/a> (here<\/a>) and Gigaclear<\/a> (here<\/a>) approached the challenges. For example, Gigaclear<\/a>’s creditors took control of the business, which also resulted in lenders taking a significant haircut on debts. In another example, KCOM<\/a> recently took a huge c. \u00a3530m write down in the value of their assets (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Suffice to say that it’s become increasingly difficult to know where the UK’s fixed line broadband market will end up. Some have even suggested that we might end up back where we started with a duopoly market dominated by Openreach<\/a> (BT<\/a>) and Virgin Media<\/a> (inc. nexfibre<\/a> etc.), particularly after the parents of the latter (inc. Infravia Capital) reached a deal to buy one of the biggest altnets, Netomnia<\/a>. Richard’s presentation even put this to an audience vote, which saw roughly 40% of the represented industry say they expected a duopoly outcome, with the remaining 60% predicting a more competitive future.<\/p>\n

However, it remains unclear whether Virgin\/nexfibre<\/a>\/Infravia would have the financial flexibility to secure more deals like the one they did with Netomnia<\/a>, particularly in light of the recent news that they’re looking to find \u00a3600m in cost savings (here<\/a>). Lest we forget that the market’s largest altnet, CityFibre<\/a>, are reportedly also preparing to fight back (here<\/a>). In other words, we may yet see a more competitive market dominated by 3-5 infrastructure providers emerge long-term, but it’s currently a difficult one to predict.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

All of this is well covered in Richard’s new Full Fibre Wacky Races<\/strong>‘ presentation from last week’s Connected Britain 2026<\/strong> conference, which we’ve pasted below for your viewing pleasure. Interestingly Richard doesn’t include his usual summary of network build progress and instead focuses everything around the context of the Netomnia<\/a> deal’s impact upon the wider market, which is yet to be decided by the CMA<\/a>. Many altnets are currently awaiting the outcome of that before progressing their own deals and strategies.<\/p>\n