FROM THE INDUSTRY
Have you worked in THE non- profit sector in the past? No, so this is an interesting experience for me because it’s not a business, it’s about member value, not shareholder value. Every now and again, I have to remind myself how different it is. Your shareholders coming and telling you, I want you to do this today, and members saying no, I want you to do this today is a very different process. One of the things that I’ve tried to do at INCA is create C-suite dinners, to get people together, because I’m all for cooperation. I think there are more things to be done together than to be done competitively. Getting your members to share a vision is what running a trade association is all about. It really is, and we are greater than the sum of our parts. Together we have a lot we can do to improve the industry for each other and future-proof the industry. Do you have any plans to change or expand in any areas of INCA? Not really. We’re a whole four people. There’s myself, Jill, Charissa and Liam. We’re doing a rebrand, we’re getting
connection between building it out and connecting people.
some professional work done on that, so we should have a new look shortly. We are a lean organisation. But I am keen to promote the knowledge base and exploit what data we have for the benefit of the industry, and INCA ultimately. What do you see coming up for INCA that you’re going to have to navigate? For INCA itself, reduction in membership. There’s going to be more and more regulation. I’m assuming the gap between now and onboarding of the new telecoms access review is what’s going to guide us over the next few years. And of course, we’ve got to remember that we’ve got one big competitor in Openreach; we’ll be watching what they do and trying to react to that. For altnets as the competitor, we’ve got to come in and do what they do, but do it better, do it faster, do it leaner, which is the advantage that smaller, newer companies have - they’re more agile. Do you think there’s anything intrinsically flawed with the altnet business model? No, not fundamentally. Yes, take-up is lower than expected, but that is part of the market failure that enabled altnets to exist in the first place; what is really missing is that the public aren’t aware that there is a better solution available. The government, the regulators and Openreach are aligned on the national vision of getting gigabit Britain. But there doesn’t seem to be a
Not the first time the public are the last to know – there are people up poles and digging holes all over the country but why it’s happening iSN’t communicated, nor why it’s an opportunity for the public either. That’s where government could probably help there because they’re good at telling the public what’s good for them. A public information campaign could do a lot to help the industry. It could change the model for altnets but also change the model for Openreach as well – they need to transfer people over to fibre as well to modernise their network. So that’s not something that we disagree on. Public awareness around that change would make the altnet model more viable. There is plenty of work for Paddy and INCA lies ahead, reflective of the altnet sector and telecoms more broadly; these are concerns that affect us all. We are looking forward to supporting their important work and will keep you posted as they progress. Good luck Paddy!
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May 2025 Volume 47 No.2
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