SCTE Broadband - Feb 2025

Volume 47 No. 1 MARCH 2025

RURAL BROADBAND

Cover art [Credit: Anna Dillon © ]

INSIDE

Special Issue: SCTE® Presents: Rural Broadband & The Last Mile One-day networking event takes place on March 18 in London!

n Long Read: Consolidation & The Altnets n International Women’s Day 2025

n We talk to Tim Richards, Dean Checkley, Zelal Keskin and Victoria D’Arcy n Plus - Insight from Corning, Calix, Amphenol, Hoptroff, Qwilt and Webro

contents

VOLUME 47 NO. 1 - MARCH 2025

editorial Editor’s Letter Welcome to the September 2024 issue of Broadband Journal.

ISSN 1751-0791

from the scte SCTE News All the latest news and events from the SCTE.

Thanks to our supporters The SCTE ® is grateful to the following supporters for their continued support of Broadband Journal: Amphenol, ANGA, Netceed, Technetix, Webro, ClimateEQ and Borderless Performance

scte benelux news Benelux News All the latest news and events from the SCTE’s Benelux Group.

scte balkans news SCTE Balkans Update from Ambassador-at-Large

SCTE ® - The Society for Broadband Professionals

scte long read Consolidation and the UK Altnets

Officers and Members of the Executive Committee President and Chair Dr Anthony Basham FSCTE Vice President Dave Hodges FSCTE Director Dr Roger Blakeway FSCTE Secretary Beverley Walker FIAM Members Laura Baskeyfield, Keith Bail, Melissa Cogavin, George Dyckes, Costas Kyriacou, Peter Sealey, Chris Swires and Peter Veerman

from the industry Industry News The latest global news from the industry. Unplugged with Tim Richards, CEO, Hoptroff The Complete Guide to RF Wireless Cables scte member focus Zelal Keskin, Expert HFC Engineer, VodafoneZiggo

22 28 32 36

SCTE ® Communications House, 41a Market Street, Watford, Hertfordshire WD18 0PN, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1923 815500

Standards Update

Why addressing data is crucial for seamless One Touch Switching 42 ClimateEQ and SCTE: Empowering Broadband Professionals with Carbon Literacy Training 46 Finding More Capacity in Fibre 48 How Sub-Nanosecond Precision Will Soon Shape Our World 50 The Final Fibre Frontier enhancing last mile FTTH deployments 52 The future of network quality: How the Open Edge is transforming content delivery for ISPs 54 Borderless Performance and SCTE: Emotional Intelligence 58 How (not) to run an industry stand/booth at a major exhibition 60 The impact of broadband on rural communities 64 Unplugged with Victoria D’Arcy, Advisor, Capital Growth Partners 68 Why the exciting momentum behind PON networks needs continued industry collaboration 70 Interview with Dean Checkley, CEO, Flomatik 74

office@theSCTE.eu www.theSCTE.eu

Managing Editor Melissa Cogavin Tel: +44 (0)7501 780342 melissa@theSCTE.eu

Publisher Evolution Print & Design Ltd 143 Cavendish Road, Leicester LE2 7PJ, UK

Tel: +44 (0) 116 274 7700 sales@evolutiondc.co.uk

Broadband Journal is published on behalf of the SCTE ® (Society for Broadband Professionals) by Evolution Print and Design Ltd. Neither the editor nor the Society, as a body, is responsible for expression of opinion appearing in the journal unless otherwise stated. Papers and contributions for consideration for publication in Broadband or for reading at meetings are welcome and should be sent to Melissa Cogavin. Letters Broadband Journal is your forum for debate on issues affecting the industry. Let us have your news and views. Write to The Editor, c/o Communications House, marking your letter ‘for publication’ or email melissa@theSCTE.eu. For reasons of space, we reserve the right to edit letters published in Broadband .

#IWD2025 International Womens’ Day 2025

technical 100G beyond 10km A global study coherent and PAM4 Technology Discovering the truth behind PON Interoperability and compatibility

86 92 94

Powering the Plant: HFC versus FTTH

The Disaggregation Revolution: Unlocking the Future of Broadband Networks

102

startup zone ForSURE: Tailored EPR software for modern retailers, simplifying compliance with user-centric design for efficient EPR processes. JET Connectivity: Enabling safe, secure and efficient 5G transmission of data in challenging environments

106 108 110

Shre: The sustainable networking solution for individuals and businesses.

industry events FTTH Conference 2025 ANGA COM Show: Fully on Track for 2025 acronym explainer

112 114

116

service finder

119

diary dates

124

MARCH 2025 Volume 47 No.1

EDITORial

Editor’s Letter

female is a superpower, your difference is what makes you special,” is something I heard over and over this time around. “Having a unique perspective is an advantage,” Maria Popo told me. She’s right. Ian Nock takes us around an imaginary trade show on page 60, showing us how NOT to run a booth; full of good advice, this lighthearted piece will be invaluable to exhibitors as we approach trade show season in the Spring. Then we interview Tim Richards, fresh from stepping down as Chair of IBC, and he tells us about his plans as well as his impressions of where digital media is heading, a quarter of a century in. We also talked to Dean Checkley at Flomatik, whose company is about to rebrand, and you’ll be able to take a deep dive into four technical papers, two from ProLabs, plus Calix and RTBrick. Finally, SCTE Members have a special offer from two training partners – Borderless Performance are offering Emotional Intelligence training to SCTE members FREE OF CHARGE – this is a very special offer and time sensitive so please turn to page 58 to find out more and book your place. Our good friends at ClimateEQ are also offering a 10% discount to SCTE Members for their Carbon Literacy training courses and you can find out all about it on page 46. Thanks to everyone involved in making this issue such a good one, especially Cotswold artist Anna Dillon for her kind permission in letting us reproduce one of her paintings for the cover, and we look forward to seeing many of you in person at our March event at One Great George Street in London (page 17).

2025 has got off to a very busy start! It’s nearly March and our feet have barely touched the ground. I’m delighted to bring you another bumper issue of broadband Journal, this one very much concerned with rural broadband, complementing our March 18 event in London, SCTE ® Presents: Rural Broadband & The Last Mile, sponsored by Corning, Technetix and Abloy (opposite). A very hot topic right now and we have a fantastic line up of expert speakers covering the business, obstacles and technology that characterise this most niche of sectors; there will be opportunities for analysis, debate and networking throughout. You may still be fortunate to grab a place if you act fast - this event has proved one of our most popular yet. In line with the theme of rural broadband is a Long Read focusing on the achievements and challenges facing the altnet industry as we turn the corner into 2025; the murmurs of consolidation began two years ago but have yet to develop into the roar that many were predicting. We look into the reasons why and what is likely to happen next (page 12). You’ll hear from our sponsor Corning on the subject of last mile FTTH deployments on page 52 and our friends at Calix reveal the surprisingly positive impact of broadband in rural areas of the US, further to an extensive survey with the Center On Rural Innovation (page 64). Additionally, it’s International Women’s Day on March 8 and to that end we are delighted to celebrate the substantial achievements of women in technology. You can read all about Maria Popo, Merrion Edwards, Sandie Brodier and Sheema Prema on page 78. “Being

Melissa Cogavin Broadband Journal SCTE ® , Society for Broadband Professionals melissa@theSCTE.eu www.theSCTE.eu

Melissa Cogavin

Volume 47 No.1 MARCH 2025

PROGRAMME

SCTE ® PRESENTS: Rural broadband & The Last Mile

9.00am - Registration & Coffee

10.00am - Welcome Address Dr Anthony Basham, President, SCTE

10.15am - Setting the Scene Alex Marshall, CEO, Cailem Consulting Helen Wylde-Archibald, CEO, Wildanet Paul Broadhurst, Founder and Group CEO, Technetix Ian Cowser, Program Manager FTTx UK, Corning Moderator: James Saunby, Consulting Director, GreySky Consulting

Ian Cowser, Program Manager FTTx UK, Corning – Sponsor Presentation

Examining the technical, logistical, economical and

11.45am - Challenges & Opportunities Mike Surrey, Chair, Alncom Ben Allwright, CEO, Ogi Tom Rigg, CEO and Michael Lee, CSO, B4RN Clément Lesur, Managing Director, Telenco UK Moderator: James Saunby, Consulting Director, GreySky Consulting

regulatory pressure points as our industry prepares to connect the more inaccessible communities, learning from experts from across the supply chain. Tuesday 18 March, One Great George Street, London SW1

1.15pm - Lunch

2.45pm - The Tech Behind It All Mark Waddell, Lead R&D Engineer, BBC Izzy Taylor, Consultant, Excelerate Dominic O’Reirdan, Head of Network Operations, Jet Connectivity Moderator: Dr Anthony Basham, President, SCTE

SPONSORED BY

approaches from headline sponsor Corning and Telenco.

SCTE ® Presents is a year-round series of events that seeks to educate and inform the industry. Open to all, they take place in spring, summer, autumn and winter. These events are an expression of the SCTE’s commitment to education and knowledge dissemination, in line with our mission to raise and maintain standards across the cable, fibre and telecoms sectors. It is 80 years this year that the SCTE has been providing accreditation, training courses, publications, webinars, podcasts and networking opportunities to a close-knit community of engineers and technicians, reinventing itself as the technology continues to evolve. The lectures remain an important date in the calendar for SCTE members all over the country. There will be two sessions in the morning and three in the afternoon, with plenty of opportunities to network and a complementary lunch for attendees. The event is free of charge. The day concludes with a drinks reception from 5pm.

Our annual spring networking event will be taking place on Tuesday 18 March at One Great George Street in central London for the cable, fibre and telecoms industries. We’ve had such a fantastic take up this time we’ve had to move up a room at the venue, and at the time of writing there are only a few places left, so if you’re reading this now I do hope you get yourself a seat! Not to be missed! Rebranded SCTE ® Presents: Rural Broadband & The Last Mile and sponsored by Corning, Technetix and Abloy, the day seeks to highlight the achievements and unravel the challenges facing the broadband sector as it focuses its attention on remote and difficult to reach communities remaining in the UK. With 69% of homes now able to access full fibre broadband (Ofcom, Jan 2024) the innovation and determination required to reach the rest is largely in the hands of altnets, who will be making up the first two panels of the day. Featuring expert speakers from all over the UK Alncom (Northumberland), Wildanet (Cornwall), Ogi (Wales), B4RN (Cumbria), Cailem Consulting (Cambridgeshire) their combined expertise and individual experiences will be complemented by more technical

Later in the day, alternatives to fibre broadband and an exposé on 5G from the BBC will take place in a technical panel that showcases the innovative solutions available from Excelerate and Jet Connectivity, followed by a new segment, an open session that seeks to debate current issues with the entire audience in round-table format, where everyone can participate. Anthony Basham, President of the SCTE ® said, “Our recently rebranded event and the line up of speakers from all over the UK clearly demonstrates the clear appetite for rural broadband as a topic, and we are delighted to be providing a day of thought-provoking discussion, opportunities to network and hear about the most state-of-the-art connectivity solutions on the market.” Ian Cowser, FTTx Program Manager UK, Corning who will be sponsoring the day said, “Rural broadband is a passion of ours at Corning and we are delighted to be supporting such a valuable and important date in the calendar and thank the SCTE for the opportunity. It promises to be a great day.”

Find out more here: https://thescte.eu/events/scte-lectures

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scte BEnelux News Festive Anniversary Dinner at a stunning venue

opportunities for networking. One attendee remarked, “I don’t know what I enjoyed the most—the dinner, the art, the music, or the conversations with industry colleagues.”

and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt. Many attendees also participated in the guided tour. The Mauritshuis has an international allure, housing an extraordinary collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings from the 17th century. After dinner, SCTE members continued exploring the museum’s exquisite art collection, providing ample

The 80th anniversary of SCTE was also celebrated in the Benelux. This year, the annual dinner for members and their partners took place at a unique location: the Mauritshuis in The Hague. On the evening of Thursday, February 13, the museum opened its doors exclusively for SCTE Benelux. Guests dined among renowned masterpieces such as Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer

www.sctebenelux.nl

New SCTE Benelux Website Live

SCTE Benelux has recently revamped its website, now accessible at www. sctebenelux.nl. In addition to general information and the event calendar, the site also features reports on past meetings.

www.sctebenelux.nl

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scte BEnelux News

Richard Marijs

Jeroen Meuleman

Bart Heinink

First Tech Summit of 2025 at Odido in The Hague Private 5G is rapidly gaining popularity among companies seeking greater control over their networks, especially given the business- critical applications and the need for reliability. For our first Tech Summit on Wednesday, April 9, 2025, we have once again enlisted compelling speakers from the industry to share their inspiring perspectives on the topic. The event, organised in collaboration with NLconnect, is themed: “Private 5G: Cowboys or Professionals?”

Speakers: n Richard Marijs

Program: n 12:30 PM – Welcome with a light lunch n 1:30 / 1:15 PM – Tour of the Odido Innovation Room n 2:30 PM – Presentations n 4:00 PM – Closing and networking drinks

Location:

Odido, Waldorpstraat 60, 2521 CC The Hague

Technology Strategist, Odido

n Jeroen Meuleman

Managing Director, Geuzenet

n Bart Heinink

Managing Director, Greenet

Online registration is available at www.sctebenelux.nl

MARCH 2025 Volume 47 No.1

scte balkans news

Letter from the Balkans Broadband Journal caught up with our Ambassador-at-Large, Besim Latifi based in Kosovo to find out what’s happening in the Balkans.

SCTE is excelling in delivering high-quality industry training

Besim Latifi, SCTE Ambassador- At-Large

Mr. Engin Unver, our Ambassador in Turkey, has already begun discussions with government authorities to facilitate the event. The Ministry of Telecommunications and key market operators will support SCTE Euro-Asia 2026. If you are interested in exhibiting, we would greatly appreciate your feedback. We believe this exhibition will be a valuable opportunity for companies and experts in HFC and optical technology to connect across continents.

With a new generation eager to acquire new skills, the demand for such opportunities is stronger than ever. We remain committed to supporting our members and are on a promising path to growth. Our next step is to offer on-site courses tailored to companies requiring specialised training. Currently, there is no exhibition bridging the European and Asian continents. To fill this gap, SCTE is planning the Euro- Asia Exhibition in Turkey in 2026. With its extensive experience in hosting large- scale industry events, Turkey is the perfect location for such a gathering.

www.theSCTE.eu

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scte balkans news

Next Generation Networks Institute: Pioneering 5G Education and Beyond

The Next Gen Networks Institute, in collaboration with the US Embassy in Kosovo and the Municipality of Peja, has established the Innovation Center in Vitomiric, just 5 km from Peja.

The centre also features state-of- the-art laboratories, including:

n A 5G-SA Laboratory.

n Cybersecurity awareness

We are committed to:

programmess for businesses.

n Developing innovative projects that empower local youth and entrepreneurs.

n Kosovo’s first Fiber Optics Laboratory, offering hands-on training with international SCTE certification. Due to high demand, optical technology installation remains a key focus area. n The eTech Tonic Platform for 5G, offering interactive courses for all levels:

n Promoting technology and

innovation to foster a business- friendly environment and unlock the municipality’s economic potential.

n Advancing education and digital

transformation initiatives to prepare the community for future challenges.

https://techtonic-edu.com/

n Establishing incubators for startups in technology, innovation, modern agriculture, renewable energy, and digital services. n Providing hands-on training and internship programs to equip students with practical experience.

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and the UK Altnets Consolidation

By Melissa Cogavin, Broadband Journal

The story of the altnets reads like a script you’d never expect to see turned into a film. A quintessentially British tale of entrepreneurial drive, community spirit, IMAGINATION and bad weather; adrenaline-inducing highs and crushing lows, defined by a list of variables so lengthy and complex it is a wonder that any of us are connected to the internet at all.

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“Consolidation isn’t happening as funding isn’t happening because subscribers aren’t happening.”

acquired Lit Fibre and integrated its footprint of around 280,000 premises into our network in less than seven months.” He concluded, “Some of the altnets are merging to achieve scale and acquisition is part of our “build and buy” strategy, enabling CityFibre to pass more than 8m premises sooner rather than later. It’s a sensible and deliberate strategy that will see CityFibre cement its position the UK’s third national network.” But over the course of researching this piece it seems clear that the ‘known knowns’ for these pioneers have been upended by a multitude of ‘unknown unknowns’, to reluctantly quote Donald Rumsfeld, that in a new market couldn’t have been easily anticipated. Chapeau It is worth pausing to acknowledge the scale of the altnets’ achievements over the last few years. Given that the boom time occurred during (and arguably because of) the worst pandemic in 100 years, accessing homes, investment, even each other was challenging, to say the least. While the rest of us put our feet up and the television on, altnets were digging holes and erecting poles amid scant PPE and strict social distancing guidelines; the longer lockdown went on, the greater our demand for broadband and the shorter our patience became when it didn’t all work seamlessly. One of the great unsung heroes of the COVID-19 crisis, unlike the NHS (which by contrast was very much sung, every week by clapping with our neighbours on the street), the broadband providers who quietly facilitated our lockdowns have never been given much credit, so take a bow. - Mike Surrey, Chair, Alncom

the industry then to get going. However, even now the rate of consolidation is slower than experts predicted. According to a report published in October last year by James Barford, analyst at Enders Analysis, “the UK altnets collectively lost over £1bn in 2023, with most metrics unrealistically distant from what they need to be for a sustainable model, particularly the smaller retail-focused operators.” This seems completely at odds with the chirpy engineer in a natty uniform snipping cables at your door, telling you how busy he is. What’s happened? This is a deep dive into the reasons why. Jazz hands There are good news stories to counter the dismal industry reports; press releases featuring happy and relieved execs shaking hands in front of branded transit vans are a fairly regular occurrence, and many have exited the industry wealthier than when they started, knowing they did connect homes and transform lives, something that this industry takes great pride in – the social good of connectivity is more of a motivator than becoming a millionaire overnight. Which is just as well. A case in point is CityFibre, market leader currently with a 12% share and rarely out of the industry press. “2025 is a key year for the industry,” Clayton Nash, Strategy Director, told Broadband Journal. “CityFibre’s full fibre network now reaches more than 4m homes and businesses and our target of connecting more than 8 million UK premises remains on track. We are looking at the opportunity that consolidation offers, having successfully

Over the last few years the altnet market has morphed from one of excitement and anticipation, investment pouring in, breathy endorsements by a revolving door of DCMS ministers with the Project Gigabit programme granting both funding and credibility to a nascent market, a market characterised by engineers with big dreams of homes passed and perhaps retiring early. It was something of a goldrush period – build quickly, acquire territory, take a risk, book early to avoid disappointment. Over the last 10-15 years an estimated 100-130 altnet companies set up shop in competition with the incumbents, Openreach and Virgin Media, in response to complaints that those incumbents apparently couldn’t or wouldn’t connect towns and villages considered not financially viable at the time. Since then, many of those altnets have evolved from kitchen table start-ups to sophisticated SMEs funded by venture capital, variously offering apprenticeships, in- house training, community outreach programmes (digital inclusion, bridging the digital divide etc), 24-hour helplines and a career path in broadband. You will have seen them driving around your town in brightly coloured, branded vans, putting flyers through your door. A market matures, a market falters Like all new markets, consolidation is a welcome indicator of a market beginning to mature. If anything, the chatter in 2021 around consolidation seems premature now, and it has taken another couple of years for the consolidation expected by

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areas. But that sort of required the big ISPs to invest in fibre rollout as well. But Sky and TalkTalk in the UK weren’t willing to do that.” Consolidation Mike Surrey, Chair at Northumberland altnet Alncom rather poetically observed that “Consolidation isn’t happening as funding isn’t happening because subscribers aren’t happening.” There are obvious reasons for this, but a lot of others that aren’t. Paddy Paddison, recently appointed CEO of INCA and co-founder of Cornwall- based altnet Wildanet has decades of experience in this field; he sees parallels with the cable industry of the 80s and 90s, recognising it as a marathon, not a sprint. A senior executive from a UK MSO was also sanguine on the matter, pointing out that that consolidation process took 20 years, whittled down from 30-40 cable providers to only 3. “Unfortunately, the economics just don’t support them all working. Economies of scale tend not to when associated with access networks. Competitive build models generate growth and raise standards, but there will always be casualties.” Consolidation at the rate we are seeing supports the same pattern we saw with cable in the 90s, and one industry insider told me, “We had a strategy meeting last year internally and asked ourselves the question, how many do you think there’ll be left at the end? Some people were up at 25 and some people were down at three.” By 2041, that could be just three ISPs for the whole of the UK: Openreach, Virgin Media and AN Other.

The backstory

The business model

Like many others, Alex Marshall founded Cambridgeshire-based altnet Upp “because it was an interesting project, it was well paid, lasted a good while and we enjoyed the social good that came with connecting people.” Upp’s outlook was relaxed, they weren’t looking for fame and fortune necessarily; “that happened only if you were super lucky, then you’d end up a multimillionaire.” Public Infrastructure Access was granted in 2011, with early efforts from altnets in around 2011-12. Openreach were focused on their own existing networks at that point, leaving the landscape wide open for altnets to emerge all over the country over the coming years. Jason Whalley from the Internet Society explained that “As early as 2012, Ofcom, the UK’s telecommunications regulator, mentions over a dozen ‘altnet’ operators in one of its annual infrastructure reports, describing them as ‘ambitious’. Since then, both their number and ambitions have grown. According to INCA, there are now around 100 such companies that will invest almost £11 billion by the end of 2025 to roll out their networks past 30 million premises. By the end of 2023, altnets collectively passed nearly 13 million premises and had two million customers.” In a territory as small as the UK, such activity is incredible. James Barford agreed, pointed out key differences. “Well, it’s a very localised business, so you get different situations in each market. But in a lot of markets, Spain, Portugal, France for example, the big ISPs all have their own fibre networks, but share a lot where possible, especially in the more rural

It’s risky, starting a business. Like becoming an actor, knowing full well there is a 90% unemployment rate, you do it because it’s something you believe in, and that belief will carry you beyond doubts and alarming statistics. Sometimes it’ll carry you all the way to winning an Oscar, or an INCA award anyway. 20% of new businesses in the UK fail in the first year; 60% fail in the first three. Only 5% of businesses celebrate a decade of trading. That self-belief and determination can cloud your judgment, leading to all sorts of costly denial (I have personal experience of this, having founded a business in 2012 and stepping away in 2018; it reached its 10-year anniversary, but only just). Starting a business is a heroic act and a courageous one, and the cruel rate of failure diminishes the spirit and the graft it takes to establish it in the first place. Was there something intrinsically flawed with the altnet concept? Or have market conditions changed? James Barford smiled and said, “Well, let’s just say we’ve always been reasonably sceptical of it as a model.” He went on, “They’ve done pretty well at rolling out, about 14 million homes passed, which is about 40% of the coverage of the UK. That’s pretty good. But they’re struggling financially for the most part. They lost over a billion pounds in 2023 according to their accounts. Their penetration is kind of struggling to get to 15%. You need to be at 40% to make money out of a full fibre roll out.”

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Adkins qualified his point. “Of course, timing is everything. Get a first mover advantage and potentially it sticks. They retain custom and word-of-mouth helps people. Customers tell you this is a good service and it’s cheaper. In a lot of cases this has worked. And many have competed successfully with Openreach.” The fact remains, however, that Openreach never quite took their eyes off the ball. Our senior MSO executive told Broadband, “There has been a certain amount of revisionism on the part of the altnets in recent years; people are having to defend business plans made in 2016 which haven’t quite come to fruition. There was a belief held by altnets that if they built it, Openreach or Virgin Media wouldn’t come. Their thesis has been proven not to be correct.” Openreach have certainly made serious inroads into parts altnets had hoped they wouldn’t reach, particularly in the last two years. What changed? What is considered economically viable changes over time, especially in times of huge economic uncertainty. Technical innovation has advanced; costs to build and deploy have reduced considerably so what wasn’t economic then may well be now.

advertising, regardless of whether it was FTTH (Fibre to the Home) or FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet). Even CityFibre’s noble attempt nearly a decade later to overturn this in the High Court failed, since the view was that the public was too stupid to really pay any attention to technical terminology, that it was ‘rarely noticed in ads and, where it was, was seen as a buzzword for faster broadband’. Staggering isn’t it. It makes you wonder if the confusion was even affecting decision makers at the ASA. Incredibly, it took till 2023 for Ofcom to be spurred into action, six years after the High Court decision (and a full 15 years’ worth of misinformation later), bringing in a ruling that stated ‘Broadband firms must now tell consumers about the network that underpins their broadband service and must only use terms that are clear and unambiguous,’ but it was rather too little too late. That hasn’t helped altnets with their subscriber rate either, not if potential customers think they already have full-fibre broadband piped into their homes. Why change? What was intended as a surefire way to grow the sector led to such confusion it actually arrested its development, but you wouldn’t know that from the ASA website, which is busy congratulating itself on a job well done. Branding and differentiation Beyond homes passed, an existential problem is plaguing small companies, one of recognition. Coloured vans and flyers aside, competing with a brand as recognisable as BT Openreach or Virgin Media, both of whom offer sophisticated content and mobile packages as well as broadband is very challenging. The only differentiators are price, service and speed. Endlessly competing on price is a race to the bottom and serves nobody. Service is an option, but small operators can’t provide the call centres, loyalty incentives and 24-hour helplines to the same extent; that said, their customer service will be much more personalised. Ogi and B4RN are notable in the sector for going the extra mile for their customers and reminding the industry what they’re doing in this area too, another important component. Educating the industry is vital; we are all learning on the job after all. Speed is an abstract concept to Joe Public and only comparable to what it is not; we all know what slow speed is. But most of us can’t tell the difference between 3Gbps (Community Fibre) and

A failure to plan is a plan to fail In rural areas, the opportunity for experienced, well connected, local engineers who knew the landscape like the back of their hands must have been irresistible. Long-term planning when technology is moving so fast is difficult, and most business plans contain an element of assumption, and analysts I spoke to agreed certain assumptions were likely made among altnets regarding subscriber demand and retention, market competition and potential market share. Who can actually see round corners after all? Depending on whom you speak to, Openreach were always intent on building out to rural areas, or instead were compelled to up their game latterly by sheer force of competition. Whatever their position, their rapid progress recently, giving subscribers more than one option in remote areas has impacted market conditions and rattled investors and altnets alike. Market conditions also changed, and the last 15 years has seen more than its fair share of tumultuous world events: a global recession, Brexit, COVID, the first Trump administration, five successive Conservative Prime Ministers in seven years, one of whom crashed the economy in her 49-day tenure, war in Europe, another in the Middle East, and now another Trump administration. It’s been a busy time. Executing a business plan of any nature amid all this was always going to be challenging, never mind concerns closer to home. Ian Adkins, partner at global consultancy and research firm Analysys Mason warned that altnets had underestimated the threat posed by Openreach’s aggressive expansion. “If a business plan is based on assuming that Openreach isn’t going to get there, it’s probably misjudged.” James Barford agreed. “There are exceptions, special cases of course, but it’s likely the altnets hoped that if they built out in an area, Openreach wouldn’t build out.” This makes sense, particularly in rural areas; by the mid 2010s residents all over the UK were losing patience waiting for the incumbents to reach them, resulting in businesses germinating at kitchen tables and residents getting the job done themselves. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all. This is the folklore circulating around the industry, which Broadband Journal has reported on at length.

Law of unintended consequences

The incumbents are partially responsible for the slow take up of subscribers among altnets but there are other elements at play. The MSO executive I spoke to felt that an education process needed to take place, to motivate customers to see the benefit of a full-fibre connection, while James Barford felt that “The altnets thought consumers would flock to them, because full-fibre is a much better service than part-fibre. The issue is that demand for very fast speeds is actually quite weak. Part-fibre provides the majority of people’s requirements pretty well.” He has a point. Few of us are mining bitcoin; even fewer are editing feature films in our spare time. Most of us, like your writer, are joining Teams calls, sending emails and relaxing with Netflix and WhatsApp of an evening. Part-fibre does the job for such low- octane pursuits. Not helping matters is ongoing confusion about what constitutes full- fibre connectivity in the minds of the public, further to the ASA’s (Advertising Standards Authority) bizarre decision from around 2008 onwards to allow the term ‘fibre’ to be applied liberally in broadband

MARCH 2025 Volume 47 No.1

scte long read

Bigger players like CityFibre could acquire them as a wholesaler, or others like Netomnia will be looking to consolidate the sector as a retail player. “We think wholesale has more sustainability,” James Barford said. “The retail market’s already pretty crowded. Trying to get 40% penetration into the retail market is very hard. It’s one thing talking about a kind of stable end game, but you’ve somehow got to get there and that can be very messy and difficult and sometimes it just doesn’t succeed.” The cliché goes, if you could do it all again, would you? This is a very dedicated industry, with decades of expertise and experience, and the decades-old relationships baked into contracts and networks sprawling across the country are a reflection of this. While everyone wants to make money, it is more than evident that people want to make a difference. Despite the risks, stress, unpredictability and curveballs altnets have endured and mistakes undoubtedly made, there seem to be few regrets, if any, and the broadband sector overall remains proud and upbeat, if possibly a little jaded. It is facing the future chest out, hoping for the best, preparing for the worst. So much seems conditional on other things happening down the chain. Investors want to know they’re going get a return, but that depends on the number of subscribers, and that depends on doing the build well and whether they get the promotion right and that depends on getting the package right and that depends on Openreach’s progress and in amongst all that they depend on getting the vouchers from BDUK. Ian Adkins agreed. “This does come down to the fact that it is on one level what seems a very simple business, but actually there are an awful lot of choices to make.”

industry either. The older we get the more difficult it is to tackle problems in an agile way. “You need to know when it’s time to step away,” Alex Marshall told me. “If the business is going to grow, you need to know when the time is right to let someone with the requisite skills and experience take it to the next level.” When it’s your baby, that’s really, really hard. The future? James Saunby, Consultant Director at GreySky Consulting, who has worked closely with altnets all over the UK takes a different view of Paddy Paddison’s earlier comparison with the cable industry of the 90s. “Consolidation will result in likely 10 large-ish companies around the UK, plus Openreach and Virgin Media followed by dozens of tiny ones catering for small communities around the country.” He did however concede that the process will take time. “Financing is a major issue for the altnets, with many relying on trickle funding from shareholders to keep operating, to keep the lights on. They aren’t expanding their networks anymore. If this dries up, it could accelerate consolidation through distressed asset sales,” James Barford pointed out, which nobody wants to see. He went on, “Competition thrives through people having a go. But in the current situation it’s a struggle. Whether it can succeed as a consolidated model or not is still unclear. It would certainly help a lot. Because part of the reason they’re struggling financially is that they’re all pretty small individually.” He concluded, “At some stage that kind of patience runs out. Debts do come due at some point, and obviously it’s mostly bank debt, but if the banks end up being in charge, they’ll sell off assets very quickly.”

2.2Gbps (Vodafone), so competing on speed alone, unless you are targeting only professional gamers, bitcoin miners or film editors is a tall order. You would probably manage to get Glastonbury tickets though. Building a brand through the build itself – building it locally rather than nationally, via community engagement, local knowledge and connections, makes a huge difference to altnet success, but like everything else in this area, takes time and there are yet more variables to consider. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. How the business started, who the players are, their relationship to the locality, how they are building and why, what the structure of the business even is. B4RN are famously non-profit, refusing to both be bought out or buy up other companies in a bid for expansion; they are solely concerned with providing high quality broadband to their own Cumbria/Lancashire footprint. Their integrity is a big part of their USP. Other companies meanwhile are causing disruption, facing angry petitions and protests in their areas, erecting telegraph poles in neighbourhoods for practical as well as reasons of speed and access, but the negative publicity this generated made national headlines last summer and is still ongoing. No altnet (or investor) wants that headache along with everything else. Pivot and Agility You can’t do it all. Engineering requires a specific skill set, a left-brain, analytical mindset, a problem-solving approach. Sales and marketing is another skill set altogether; right brain, extrovert, creative. Few of us are polymaths really. As a small business evolves from digging trenches and installing fibre, to an SME dealing with customer service enquiries and PR campaigns - that is a big pivot and with a small team it is difficult to be all things to all people. We are not a young

Ofcom’s annual report in December last year celebrates a 12% increase on homes passed in the UK. 20.7m homes now have access to full fibre broadband out of 30.1m households. 58,000, or 0.2% of premises (residential and small businesses) still have no access to decent broadband, a reduction from 61,000 in 2023. Meanwhile, satellite services are expanding as a new option for people and businesses to access broadband. In 2024, there were 87,000 connections across the UK, a more than doubling from 42,000 in 2023.

[Source: Ofcom, 2024].

Volume 47 No.1 MARCH 2025