SCTE NEWS
Meanwhile as consolidation progresses, the very fate of INCA themselves is at risk. Goodwill alone won’t save another membership organisation whose members are eating each other whole as the market matures. The experience and knowledge in the room shouldn’t be underestimated; the shared history and long relationships in the room are extremely valuable, and there are lots of ideas on the table about how to approach such challenges. The positive outcomes contained in the State of the Altnets report, said Lloyd Felton, INCA Board Member, in his closing comments, demonstrated that we are better together than apart, as an organisation. “Independence is an asset, but only if we use it collectively.”
competition in the ultrafast broadband market – and the UK is now benefitting from it. “We’re now seeing Altnets moving from supplementing incumbent networks to increasingly being the primary source of full fibre connectivity for millions of households.” Despite the slower pace of network rollout, Altnets still invested £2 billion during 2025 and increased coverage by 20% year-on- year to reach 19.7m premises by the end of the year, with nearly 4.4m of these in Ofcom’s Area 3, a milestone in as much as the Altnets have delivered full fibre connectivity to nearly half of all premises in hard to reach areas. There were some significant performances during 2025 in the Altnet sector, with Fibrus reporting take up rates of 28% and CityFibre reporting it had exceeded 20% penetration across its consumer footprint and is on track to exceed 30% by the end of 2026. Community Fibre also grew its customer base by 26% year-on-year to 429,000, achieving a take up rate of just under 32%.
whose return depends on an M&A, as soon as it happens, you cede control of that business.” Martin Harriman, Chair at Wildanet and Non-exec Chair at GoFibre pointed out that the success of a business can’t depend on consolidation alone and without the four P’s of Marketing in place: Product, Price, Place and Promotion, you won’t even get to consolidation phase. Paddy Paddison, Chief Executive at INCA, summed things up: “Whilst there is much work to do by the independent network sector and still a lot to play for, the data from both studies shows real promise for Altnets. “There is definitely a ‘changing of the guard’ emerging in the broadband marketplace. Altnets are pretty much matching the big players for new connections growth, taking share from them, and there is a lot of evidence that the independent market is giving the big providers more than a run for their money when it comes to customer value and experience. That is vindication for the Government’s policies to create more
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MAY 2026 Volume 48 No.2
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