Original article ISPreview UK:
The CEO of Abingdon-based alternative rural broadband ISP Gigaclear, Nathan Rundle, has told Richard Tang, CEO of Zen Internet, that they’re still focused on extending their full fibre (FTTP) network to 1 million UK homes in ultra rural areas. But the provider is concerned about Ofcom’s proposed changes to the market getting in the way.
The new interview reveals that Gigaclear’s gigabit-capable broadband network now covers 600,000 premises (up from 593k in March 2025) – mostly in remote rural parts of England (only about 15% of their network is in market towns) – and is also home to a customer base of 150,000 (up from 140k). This reflects a respectable penetration rate of 25% and Nathan said they’re aiming to reach around 29% by the end of this financial year.
NOTE: Gigaclear is principally owned by
Infracapital, together with
Equitix and
Railpen. The company previously had investment commitments estimated to be worth up to around £1.1bn (
here) and in late 2023 also secured a £1.5bn debt facility (
here). The provider also holds several Project Gigabit build contracts in Oxfordshire (
here) and East Gloucestershire (
here).
The operator previously held an ambition to cover “over” 1 million UK premises by 2027, but last year’s job cuts – impacting their commercial build teams – may well have hit that (here). This came as part of “planning for the next stage of its development” and a “re-focus on ultra-rural areas“. Gigaclear is reportedly now on the hunt for fresh funding to continue their full fibre deployments (here), but in the meantime they’re more focused on commercialisation.
“We’ve definitely been refocusing our build to go ultra-rural, which means the deployment is slower than it was, and we’re using a lot more BDUK [public] money, while being really clear around those investment cases. I think the current funding climate, as every altnet knows, is tough and ultimately deploying large amounts of capital at the moment isn’t necessarily a logical thing to do,” said Nathan.
Nathan added that they’re “kind of open” about how they get to 1 million homes, whether that’s through working in partnership and consolidation with others or all new build. Gigaclear’s Board is currently “working through” this very question at the moment in order to “understand what is the best way” to reach a million, while at the same time also expecting to go EBITDA positive this year.
The ability to achieve a positive EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) usually indicates that a company’s core operations are becoming profitable, albeit still with a long way to go. “EBITDA positivity is a really important first step. We’ve got a plan for getting us through to being profitable and cash generating, which is obviously critical for our lenders and investors. So we are on that path, we are on plan, we know exactly what we need to do,” enthused Nathan.
In terms of the timescale involved in achieving that positive outcome, Nathan said that “in the next 3-5 years we should be in a good position“, albeit without being too specific.
Defining the Competition
Richard’s interview soon identified that one of the potential challenges to the above ambition could come from Ofcom’s new Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR). In particular, Gigaclear raised concern over Ofcom’s plan to change the definition for which parts of the UK are deemed competitive or not, which is important as it influences how much regulation is applied to Openreach (BT) as the market incumbent. At the last review, back in 2021, the regulator defined Area 3 (non-competitive areas) as covering about 30% of the UK, which is typically Gigaclear’s area of focus.
However, gigabit-capable broadband today already covers 86% of UK premises, with Ofcom forecasting that this will reach 97-98% by May 2027 (here). Suffice to say that the regulator’s new TAR is somewhat logically proposing to shrink Area 3 from 30% to 10% of UK premises, but that has Gigaclear worried.
“Not sure I would agree with their new definition of area 3. I think the old definition of area 3 was too wide and included far too many market towns. But I think beginning to look at how do we get an approach to infrastructure that gets the delivery of this critical service into these communities as quickly as possible could potentially mean there needs to be further collaboration between ourselves, the incumbent, and some of the other players in the market to try and get that standardised approach,” said Nathan.
Instead Gigaclear are pushing for “sensible regulation around area 3” in order to avoid it having an “impact on [their] future investment“. Nathan said he would prefer Ofcom to “make no significant changes” and warns that area 3 has now been made “far too small“.
Nathan added that they’re now “petitioning [the regulator] quite hard around the fact that just because an altnet has built it, doesn’t immediately make it commercially viable for two operators.” Naturally, there’s an element of vested interest here, but Nathan does make a fair point.
Wholesale and Retail Pricing
Toward the end of the new interview, which you can watch in full below (this touches on many other areas), Nathan also hints at Gigaclear’s future plan to explore “more wholesale partnerships” and the need to produce a “credible wholesale offering” in order to attract more broadband ISPs to their network.
Gigaclear is currently a vertically integrated operator (i.e. it both runs the network and sells services over it at retail), which for rivals can be perceived as a conflict of interest. Short of becoming a wholesale-only network, like CityFibre, this one can be a difficult problem to overcome, with the proof being in how many established and reputable ISPs they can ultimately onboard.
Finally, the interview briefly turned a bit spicy as Richard highlighted how Gigaclear’s standard out-of-contract prices can sometimes be significantly higher than their first term discounted rate, which is something we’ve noted before (e.g. Richard pointed to the example of how, at the time, they were offering their gigabit package for £29 per month, but post-contract it shoots up to £85). Richard noted how this change wasn’t always well signposted for new customers (a common problem in the wider market, not only at Gigaclear).
“We’re really clear with the list price. We contact all of our customers all the time before they go on to that list price, to give them the opportunity to re-contract. If a customer gets the bill shock, normally they phone us straight away and we’ll immediately look to re-contract them and find a better deal for them,” responded Nathan. He also noted how there is only a “small percentage paying list price“.
Richard then pressed Nathan on how much the re-contracting price, roughly, for that same tier would be, but Nathan avoided giving a clear figure: “What we try to do is look for different ways to create value for the customer, to try and settle on a different price, that might be upgrading their smart wifi, it could be a voice package as well. We’ve got a team of specialists that will sit down and talk to the customer, understand their needs, and do the best price we can for them … it’s down to the ISPs to make sure that they get that balance right and don’t take advantage.”
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