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CommunityFibre, which has deployed a 5Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband network to cover 1.342 million homes (inc. 185k businesses within 200 metres of their network) – mostly in London, has this morning announced that they’ve connected more than 400,000 properties (customers) to the service (up from 336k at the end of 2024).
The provider, which is currently being backed by funding of c.£1bn, has had a rough couple of years due to the rising cost of build, strong market competition and high interest rates (a common challenge in the market). All of this has caused a previous slowdown in network build and related redundancies (here and here), which resulted in CF pivoting their strategy to focus more on growing customer uptake.
The good news is that this strategy has clearly helped to boost their adoption, with CommunityFibre today reporting a 33% increase in its customer base over the past year, reaching a network penetration rate of 30%. “This makes Community Fibre the No. 1 major Alternative Network (Altnet) in the UK by customer penetration,” said the announcement. But if we leave out the word “major” then there are others, like B4RN (c.50% take-up), that have done better on the smaller scales.
The ISP added that it has seen strong adoption of its high-speed products too, with the “majority” of its customers now said to be on speeds of 1Gbps or above, as well as an increased take-up of its top 5Gbps and 2.5Gbps products. All of this is likely to be further boosted by their recent wholesale agreement with Vodafone (VodafoneThree) – here.
Graeme Oxby, CEO of Community Fibre, said:
“Our relentless focus on network and sales excellence, lean operations, and industry-leading service is the foundation for sustainable success in the Altnet market. Community Fibre continues to prove that new broadband competition can not only be financially sustainable in the long run, it can also deliver meaningful advantages to UK society.”
Following their recent financial results (here), CommunityFibre today added that they are now “on course” for an annualised EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) of £70m by year-end, building on a current run rate of over £50m.
Community Fibre also provides free 1Gbps full fibre broadband to more than 720 community spaces in the city.