Fibre Provider's Weekly Update

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. 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...

Community Fibre secures new ￡125m funding

Community Fibre Limited has signed?a new finance facility provided and/or arranged by JP Morgan, Barclays, LBBW, SIMCo (Sequoia Investment Management Company) and Alpha Bank.

The additional funding raised a total of ￡125m, overachieving planned targets and bringing total investment in the company to ￡1.1bn.

Graeme Oxby , CEO of Community Fibre said: “Our success here, growing from just 10 thousand customers at the start of 2020 to more than 310 thousand in less than five years, has driven a strong lender appetite.

“We and our financial backers are aligned on driving acquisition growth and confident in overachieving our penetration targets.”

Olaf Swantee, Chairman of Community Fibre added:?“The lenders and our shareholders share the view that Community Fibre’s momentum will further strengthen its position as one of London's largest full fibre only providers, and is a vote of confidence in its strong management team and their ability to commercialise the large London network.”

Netomnia secures additional NWF ￡25m loan

Netomnia has secured an additional ￡25 million loan from the National Wealth Fund (NWF).

The investment bolsters a ￡75 million debt commitment made in March 2023 bringing the total NWF backing to ￡100 million.

The loan will support the continued expansion of Netomnia’s broadband network, investing in boosting services to rural areas.

To date, the funding has helped connect more than 100,000 premises to the Netomnia network, with around 10,000 customers now benefitting from high-speed services across the UK, particularly in digitally underserved regions.

This is expected to more than double as the network continues to grow.

Jeremy Chelot , CEO at Netomnia and Group, commented: "This additional ￡25 million investment from NWF will significantly accelerate our ability to deliver fast broadband to more UK homes and businesses, particularly in underserved communities.”

Stuart Nivison, National Wealth Fund Head of Portfolio Management, said: “This investment will directly support improvements in areas that would otherwise miss out on the opportunities fast, reliable broadband affords.”

Hyperoptic appoints Heddle as Product Director

Hyperoptic has appointed Geoff Heddle as the new Director of Product.

Geoff has 15 years of experience in Product Management and Digital Transformation.

The new position will see him enhancing the end-to-end customer experience and shaping the provider’s product strategy.

Lutfu Kitapci, Chief Customer Officer & MD ISP at Hyperoptic, said: “Geoff’s expertise in product design and management will play a key role as we continue to deliver the best possible experience for our customers.”

Fibre Forecast sessions - Winter programme

Fibreprovider.net are pleased to announce details of our sponsored programme of ‘Fibre Forecasts’, providing fibreprovider.net readers with insights into the challenges, opportunities, strategies, and technologies shaping the UK fibre sector in 2025 and beyond.

These roundtable sessions bring together industry experts to discuss the key issues and innovations driving the UK fibre sector. The insights gained from these discussions form a crucial part of our editorial calendar, appearing on FibreProvider.net, our weekly newsletter, and across social media.

Participants sponsors will have the unique opportunity to showcase their thought leadership and industry expertise.

Fibre Forecast Programme for Winter 2024

• Assessing Wholesale Model Benefits - Exploring how the wholesale landscape is evolving & how altnets can increase customer take-up by leveraging a balanced wholesale portfolio.
• Evolving Recruitment Priorities- How is the sector finding talent as altnets shift from build engines to sales and marketing organisations? Do skill shortages still plague the sector and how can they be navigated.
• Embedding Efficiency - What partnerships can be leveraged by altnets to build efficiency into their continued build or customer addition processes.

For details on how to participate contact Simon Turton or Heather Miles for details.

PlatformX Communications partners with ISPA

PXC has partnered with the Internet Services Providers’ Association (ISPA) to strengthen its links with the sector.

Following the announcement of their operational separation from TalkTalk last March, PXC has focused on establishing its independence and intention to become a key scale challenger in the wholesale market and a strong UK Alternative Networks aggregator platform.

PXC has achieved this by providing its partners with access to the fibre marketplace, thanks to its aggregation work with CityFibre, MS3, Freedom Fibre, Community Fibre, ITS and now, Netomnia/Brsk – plus Openreach – with plans to increase this list in future.

ISPA is a key voice of the UK internet industry and working with ISPA will be a critical force in PXC progressing it’s FTTP strategy.

Katie Crellin, PXC’s Head of Regulation, commented: “The forum ISPA has created, and the work they’re doing to encourage the market to work closer together, plays into our strategy to offer The Channel reliable, fast fibre connectivity.”

Krystian Heald , Head of Partnerships at ISPA UK said: “Our association is based on shared goals and collaboration from across the UK’s internet sector and PXC, as an aggregator between fibre networks and ISPs, makes them an ideal fit for our association.”

Ofcom to retire NoT+ switching system

Ofcom will retire its old UK Broadband ISP Switching System NoT+ on 24th October, following One Touch Switch (OTS) going live on 12th September.

NoT+ functionality was kept in place on an exceptional basis for a limited period of six weeks beyond 12th September, as an interim measure until OTS was fully implemented.

Ofcom has reported the new system is “working well for the vast majority of customers looking to switch their services” and states that the removal of NoT+ will help make switching easier.

The regulatory body will closely monitor those who fail to comply with the General Conditions, opening appropriate reviews into conduct investigations through its ongoing enforcement programme.

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.