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The past couple of years have been awash with news and predictions about rising consolidation within the UK\u2019s market for alternative fixed broadband networks (altnets). But keeping track of so many developments can be difficult, so ISPreview has decided to start a new tracker, which monitors related announcements since 2020 onwards.<\/p>\n
Most altnets across the market are currently looking at consolidation as a way of balancing against the difficult market conditions that have arisen over the past few years. Much of this has been driven by high interest rates, rising build costs and strong competition (i.e. overbuild and the impact on customer take-up) \u2013 all of which is making it hard to raise fresh investment and expand networks.<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s easy to overlook that this squeeze has already resulted in quite a few sizeable consolidation agreements taking place, and many industry observers expect the current crop of c.80 altnets to shrink down into a market dominated by just a handful (or less) of players over the coming years. Suffice to say that we\u2019ve been keeping track of this for a while and thought readers might benefit if we shared our data.<\/p>\n
Take note that the table below is purely focused on infrastructure providers \u2013 typically those that have been building full fibre networks for consumers to use \u2013 and not retail ISPs, although some of the below agreements do include vertically integrated retail ISPs (we\u2019ll mention those where relevant). The list excludes business providers that only offer traditional Ethernet (leased line<\/a>) services, as they\u2019re somewhat of a different animal and usually focused on site-specific connectivity, rather than wide area coverage of both homes and businesses.<\/p>\n Altnet UK Fibre Consolidation Tracker (Jan 2020 \u2013 Dec 2025)<\/p>\n CityFibre<\/a> agreed a \u00a3200m deal to purchase FibreNation (FN) from the TalkTalk<\/a> group. The FN project had originally aspired to cover 3 million UK premises, but at the time they had only covered c.54,000 premises in York and were working to reach hundreds of thousands more across various other locations. TalkTalk<\/a> also reached a wholesale wider agreement with CityFibre<\/a> as part of the deal.<\/p>\n The 4th Utility<\/a>, which specialised in deploying FTTP<\/a> to residential properties (mostly new build developments), acquired London focused provider Vision Fibre Media<\/a> (VFM) for an undisclosed sum. At the time VFM claimed to have connected over 10,000 properties to their own full fibre network.<\/p>\n London-focused network CommunityFibre<\/a> acquired Box Broadband for an undisclosed sum. At the time Box had a much smaller network (7,000 premises) in parts of Surrey and West Sussex, albeit with plans to expand much further across Southern England.<\/p>\n The Fern Trading backed Swish Fibre stepped in to acquire People\u2019s Fibre for a cash sum of \u00a32.8m after they began to struggle with competition in their build areas. At the start of People\u2019s Fibre\u2019s administration process, the network had built to just 5,293 premises and connected only 150 of those to their service.<\/p>\n The Fern Trading backed altnets of Jurassic Fibre<\/a>, Swish Fibre and Giganet<\/a> agreed to merge. The process ultimately didn\u2019t fully complete until June 2025 (here<\/a>), which resulted in AllPoints Fibre Networks<\/a> (APFN) managing the wholesale network and Cuckoo<\/a> becoming their primary retail ISP. As of November 2024 the combined network is estimated to cover c.300k premises.<\/p>\n Nexfibre<\/a>, which is closely tied by some of the same parentage to Virgin Media<\/a> (VMO2), acquired Upp from investment firm LetterOne. The deal occurred after a security review by the Government forced the latter into a sale. At the time of the deal, Upp was said to cover 175,000 premises and be home to just 4,000 customers.<\/p>\n Voneus<\/a> announced a deal to consolidate Broadway Partners, SWS Broadband and Cadence Networks into their network \u2013 funded by up to \u00a3250m in new capital. The deal reflected an agreement between a consortium of existing investment partners, including Macquarie Capital, Israel Infrastructure Fund (IIF) and Tiger Infrastructure Partners.<\/p>\n Network operator Digital Infrastructure (BeFibre<\/a>) agreed to merge into FullFibre Limited<\/a>. Both were backed by investment from Basalt Infrastructure Partners LLP. The consolidation created a single network covering over 250,000 homes, with an ambition to deliver 1 million live premises through a wholesale business model.<\/p>\n Freedom Fibre signs an agreement with InfraBridge-backed VX UK Holdings Ltd (VXFIBER) to combine their respective broadband networks \u2013 reflecting a combined total of 285,000 premises passed.<\/p>\n Major wholesale centric altnet operator CityFibre acquires LitFibre\u2019s base of 200,000 premises (inc. 9,000 retailed customers) for c.\u00a380m. CityFibre later splits out LitFibre to operate as an independent retail ISP for the aforementioned customer base.<\/p>\n Network operator Trooli<\/a>, which was backed by Agnar UK Infrastructure, consolidated Axione UK\u2019s smaller network in rural Scotland into their wider network across England \u2013 both operators had some links via French parent investment firm Vauban Infrastructure Partners. Details of the original agreement have not been made public.<\/p>\n Netomnia<\/a> and Brsk<\/a>, both of which were backed by investment firm Advencap, agreed to merge and create a combined network covering 1.5 million premises (RFS), including a customer base of 140,000. The deal set a new target of reaching 3 million premises (coverage) by the end of 2025. At the time of the deal, the combined group was worth c.\u00a31.3bn.<\/p>\n The tiny network operator of RunFibre, which largely focused on parts of South Gloucestershire and had only covered around 1,500 premises, found itself being acquired by network and engineering firm the Fibreray Group<\/a> for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n Oaktree Capital backed Zzoomm<\/a> was consolidated into FullFibre Limited, which itself was backed by Basalt Infrastructure Partners LLP. The deal created a combined group with a network spanning 600,000 premises passed (RFS) and over 65,000 customers. Some reports speculated (unconfirmed) that the combined group could be worth \u00a3500m.<\/p>\n CityFibre acquired PATRIZIA-backed Connexin<\/a> for an undisclosed sum. At the time of the deal, Connexin<\/a>\u2019s fibre network passed 80,000 premises. The agreement also meant that CityFibre took responsibility for Connexin\u2019s \u00a358.6m (state aid) Project Gigabit contract to reach 34,320 rural premises in Nottinghamshire and West Lincolnshire (Lot 10). Finally, Connexin retained their existing retail base and will act as an independent ISP.<\/p>\n BUUK Infrastructure (aka \u2013 Open Fibre Networks Limited<\/a> \u2013 OFNL) acquired FibreNest from Persimmon Homes<\/a> for a discounted total enterprise value of c. \u00a3100m. At the time of the deal, OFNL covered an estimated 170k premises and FibreNest reached around 54,000. Both networks focus on deploying fibre across developments for new build homes.<\/p>\n Ask4<\/a>, which normally builds networks for the student and rental accommodation sector, acquired ClearFibre<\/a> \u2013 previously part of Elevate (formerly Telcom) \u2013 to help grow their position in the UK\u2019s Build-to-Rent (BTR) market. No solid financial or network coverage details were disclosed to the public.<\/p>\n A relatively new network provider called Fibre Nova<\/a> acquired RunFibre from the Fibreray Group. No financial or updated network coverage figures were released. In August 2024 RunFibre stated that its network had passed \u201cover 1,500 premises\u201c \u2013 mostly in South Gloucestershire.<\/p>\n Truespeed<\/a> and County Broadband, both of which are backed by Aviva Investors, agreed to merge and created a combined group under the Truespeed<\/a> Communications Group Ltd \u2013 covering 177,000 premises (RFS), with 40,000 customers already connected to the network.<\/p>\n We will add more consolidation agreements to this list as they occur.<\/p>\n Total Agreements by Year<\/p>\n 2020: 1
\n2021: 3
\n2022: 0
\n2023: 5
\n2024: 4
\n2025: 6
\n2026: ? (in progress)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The past couple of years have been awash with news and predictions about rising consolidation within the UK\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[84,593,59,57,58,50,229,7723,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-340414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-business","tag-fttp","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-statistics","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}