Fibre Provider Weekly Update #14

Fibre Provider enables the spectrum of organisations driving the UK’s fibre rollout to keep up to date with the latest commercial, regulatory and planning news alongside insight and analysis from sector experts. As part of this mission, our weekly newsletter compiles the top news that broke during the week and brings it straight to your inbox.

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In this week's news...

Cuckoo names Howells as first MD

Cuckoo has appointed Sarah Howells to the newly created role of MD, to oversee all customer-facing activities.

Howell previously held the Chief Customer Officer role at Cuckoo and has nearly 30 years of experience in the industry, holding senior positions at NTL, Vodafone New Zealand and 2degrees Mobile.?

Before joining Cuckoo in 2023, she was Chief Customer Officer at Jurassic Fibre , where she tripled the customer base within nine months.

She said: “Providing our customers with unmatched customer experience is at the top of our agenda, and it’s critical to achieving our goal of providing fast, fair, feel-good broadband for all.”

Paul Hellings , CEO of Cuckoo, said: “With Sarah as Managing Director, and her three decades of expertise, I’m confident we can accelerate customer growth.”

Telecom Acquisitions joins Freedom Fibre Network

Telecom Acquisitions Limited (TAL) has become the newest retail partner to offer services to customers on the Freedom Fibre network.

At last count, following Freedom Fibre’s merger with VX Fibre at the start of the year, the altnet had a 300k premise footprint in the north west.

Freedom Fibre’s CEO, Neil McArthur , said: “As a wholesale provider of fibre services we know what we’re good at it, but we need to build solid relationships with companies like TAL to maximise our distribution in different parts of the country.

“The partnership represents an opportunity to enhance our footprint and make our services available to a broader audience.”

Two million customers now using altnet fibre

Two million UK customers are now using fibre services from an altnet, representing 33% year-on-year growth in connections.

This comes from the latest INCA - Independent Networks Co-operative Association - Point Topic Ltd report ‘State of the Altnets 2024’ which also finds that nearly half a million customers switched to an altnet in 2023.

Furthermore, altnets grew their collective network footprint by 57% year on year to reach 12.9m premises. This covers 35% of all UK homes.

For comparison, Openreach has passed 12.8m homes with its network.

In London more than half of premises can get FTTP service from one or more altnets. Around three million of these premises were in Ofcom’s Area Three, (Rural postcode areas expected to need project gigabit help.)

The report projects that altnets will supply full fibre to 16.7m premises by the end of 2024, with three million more live connections, giving altnets >10% of the residential broadband market.

Tim Stranack , INCA Chair and Co-founder, Community Fibre, said: “By the time of next year’s report we will have a new Government and Ofcom’s first market review consultation. Support from both parties will be needed if the UK’s vision of established and sustainable telecommunications competition which elevates the UK to the forefront of technological innovation is to be realised.”

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Zzoomm passes 25,000 customer connection milestone

Zzoomm has hit its latest commercial milestone, connecting its 25,000th customer to its full fibre network.

The altnet hit the 20,000 customer mark in January this year, increasing its base by 50% in four months. For comparison, it connected its 10,000th customer in March 2023.

Matthew Hare , CEO of Zzoomm, said:? “We will look towards hitting our next major milestone as we continue to grow our share of the market.”

Vorboss calls on Ofcom to implement compensation for business customers

Vorboss is calling on Ofcom to introduce an automatic compensation regime for business customers after finding that the UK economy has lost ￡17.6bn in the last 12 months due to fixed connectivity outages.

The provider’s report found that 61% of businesses that experienced an outage did not receive any compensation but lost an average of more than ￡11,000. For businesses based in London, the loss was ￡18,620.

That is due to an average of 314 lost hours (nearly 40 working days) of productivity per London business.

Ofcom introduced automatic compensation for consumers in 2019, and found the scheme increased compensation payments and saw more steps taken to fix issues.

Vorboss has written to Ofcom stating that it is time to introduce a similar scheme to protect UK businesses.

Tim Creswick , Founding CEO at Vorboss, said: “Ofcom's introduction of automatic compensation in the consumer market has been a success, pushing service providers to improve quality, while giving customers reassurance that compensation is real and tangible. If the scheme was extended to include businesses, we would see the same benefits, along with a significant productivity boost to London and the UK economy through reduced outages.”

Thanks for reading, and we hope to see you back here next Friday for the latest news update. Be sure to subscribe at the top of this newsletter to get your copy.