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In recent months’ we’ve been reporting on how Rochdale-base ISP Zen Internet has expanded the reach of their “full fibre” (FTTP) broadband network by signing wholesale access agreements with a number of alternative network providers, such as Trooli and Freedom Fibre. But their ambitions aren’t limited to retail packages.
Zen previously only supplied services to homes and businesses using broadband products from Openreach (BT) and CityFibre, but as above they’ve been busily expanding that range of networks. However, the provider has also spoken of its “aspirations to become the UK’s alt-net aggregator of choice“, which could provide an alternative choice to the likes of PXC (TalkTalk Wholesale), AllPoints Fibre and others in the wholesale space for rival ISPs (partners) to harness.
In keeping with this, Zen has this week announced that it will be making its “entire full fibre footprint” available to its channel partners via their soon to launch Fibre Hub platform (not a router). Zen’s CEO, Richard Tang, has hinted about doing this before (December), but it’s now becoming a reality.
Zen also confirmed the unsurprising news that they were currently in discussions with “several other alt-nets“, including those focused on the B2B market, to help further expand the range of options available to partners.
Richard Tang said:
“There are about 100 companies building full fibre networks in the UK at the moment. One of these is Openreach, and of the others, there are about 20 or so scale players. We want to offer our partners access to as many of those alt-nets as possible.
The alt-nets are leading the best free market infrastructure competition since the internet began. That’s great news for Zen and it’s great news for our partners in terms of choice and competitive pricing. We’re not stopping with the deals we’ve made. We’re talking to a number of other alt-nets already.”
The provider added that they’re currently expecting to make CityFibre’s full fibre footprints available to partners in April 2025, while Trooli will follow “later this summer” and Freedom Fibre are due to be introduced into their Partner Portal “soon“.
The new Fibre Hub itself will launch to existing Zen Partners towards the end of April, “offering a one-stop shop for full fibre residential and business availability“, said Zen. Sales and marketing campaign data and materials will also be integrated, helping Zen Partners to seize the opportunity.