Original article ISPreview UK:
The CEO of ISP Zen Internet, Richard Tang, has today shared a new interview with the CEO of BT Group, Allison Kirkby, which touches on everything from how they’d “love to” participate in the future consolidation of alternative networks (but not for a while) and the way that building a more valuable asset via FTTP broadband may compensate for having a smaller UK market share.
In case anybody has been living under a rock for the past few years. The BT Group is currently, via network access provider Openreach, investing up to £15bn on rolling out a new gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network across the United Kingdom. The effort has already covered 18.3 million premises, and they aim to reach 25 million by December 2026, which is followed by an ambition for up to 30m by 2030.
The BT Group is currently “investing £4.8bn this year, and we did that last year as well,” said Allison, before adding that a “large chunk of that is in the fibre upgrade” via Openreach. This is all in service of helping to create a “new asset for the next 40-50 years.” But despite building at an incredible rate of over 1 million premises passed per quarter, and growing take-up to 36% at the same time, Openreach is still rapidly losing broadband lines to a new generation of rival networks.
Openreach lost 707,000 such lines to rivals in 2024 and line losses reached 243k in just the last quarter to March 2025 (here), although most of these tend to come from the areas where Openreach have yet to build their new FTTP network (i.e. areas on their slower copper-based lines, where rivals may have built something better before them). Hence, the need to build ever faster.
However, Allison said she recognises that, in the future, “we’ll have a smaller market share, but it’ll be a more valuable modern-day asset that delivers a much better customer experience … even with that lower market share” (i.e. cheaper to operate, better experience and more loyal customers = better product that she says will still get a return on their investment). But equally, BT’s boss noted that they’ve still “got to be competitive, rather than just accept that every line we can lose forever“.
Allison pointed out that the company itself is similarly having to evolve with the market. “BT needs to transform. We need to be a more modern day, more nimble company that moves faster … We were about half the productivity of our peers .. that’s what we had to address,” which she said is coming through various stages of modernisation (inc. copper retirement, redundancies, significant fault reduction within their Openreach network etc.).
BT’s CEO also expects Ofcom to deregulate as the market evolves. “My retail businesses do not have monopolistic, you know, incumbent market share positions. I’ve got just under 30% retail market share in mobile, I’ve got about 35% broadband market share in retail. It’s only in the wholesale business of Openreach where we had the 75% market share. But in the future there are now two, sometimes three, providers of fibre access and so over time those areas should definitely be deregulated.. is my view,” said Allison. Ofcom has already indicated that any big changes on this front may have to wait until 2031 or later (here).
The interview then moved to focus on the often-tedious question of consolidation, particularly with respect to the markets many alternative broadband networks. “It’s pretty clear that it will not make sense for the UK to served by a hundred different fibre providers in the future. I don’t think it would be necessarily good for the country’s resilience and not all of those providers will make an economic return on their investment, it’s just not going to happen, it’s a very competitive market,” said Allison.
Most industry folk would probably agree that more consolidation is inevitable, although they might not agree with how BT’s CEO sees things ending up. “The way it’s playing out over here, I think there will only be one nationwide wholesaler in the end. So I think large parts of Openreach will probably stay regulated. I think there will be one, possibly two, other alternative wholesalers across the country, but they might not be everywhere. And then you’ll have a concentration around the city areas with some of the alternative networks, but there will need to be consolidation,” added Allison.
However, Allison notes that consolidation is currently going slower than she expected, which she attributes to a lot of investment having already gone into the ground and high value expectations of those assets, which she thinks are “unlikely to materialise“. BT’s boss said altnets need to get more realistic about the value of their networks, which she believes will “start to play out in the next 2-5 years.. but I think we will be in to the next decade before we really see the end state” of this market.
On the subject of consolidation and whether the BT Group might get directly involved, Allison noted that Openreach is “not planning to build everywhere” itself (i.e. their target is up to 30m by 2030, but that still leaves c.4 million) and “there will definitely be partnership opportunities in the future, but it’s not here at the moment” (i.e. they’re focused on their own Openreach fibre build for now).
“In terms of participating in consolidation, we’d love to. I think it’s problematic at the moment, certainly in wholesale … [yet] priority is not making acquisitions, for the moment“. But clearly there’s a hint that Openreach may look to acquire some rival networks, albeit seemingly only those that cover those in the final c.4m of hardest to reach premises (there’s not likely to be many of those and some, like B4RN, are community benefit societies that cannot easily be acquired).
Finally, on the subject of the BT Group’s dramatic 50% increase in share price over the past year or so, Allison explains that this is more about how they’ve given the market a clearer roadmap: “BT’s share price is very much linked to the free cashflow that it throws off. When we were throwing off £3bn in cash our share price was about £3, when we were at peak investment phase on fibre and were throwing off about £1bn we were about £1.”
Allison explained how she “inherited a guidance to the market” that BT Group were going to get back to the £3bn mark by the end of the decade, but the market “wasn’t giving them any credit” for that. So she “mapped out how they were going to grow” to that target, showing the market a path that it could then give them credit for as progress is made (i.e. in fibre build, company modernisation etc.).
The full interview doesn’t contain any earth-shattering revelations, but it does offer a unique insight into the group’s strategy and that’s relevant for many of those in our wider readership – including consumers, retail ISPs and physical network operators alike.
