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In a significant strategic development. City-focused UK ISP Hyperoptic, which has spent the past few years deploying their own alternative full fibre (FTTP/B) gigabit broadband network to cover 1.9 million premises (up from 1.73m in July 2024), has confirmed to ISPreview that they plan to extend this to “at least” another 1 million premises – albeit using Openreach’s network.
The operator, which at the start of this year suffered another round of redundancies and is currently present across parts of 64 UK locations (towns and cities), is understood to have informed their staff of the latest development this afternoon. In addition, Hyperoptic has also shared that this month it passed 400,000 active subscribers (up from 340,000 in July 2024), and covered “over” 1.9 million homes (just below their 2m target).
Adopting Openreach’s national network for their expansion marks a radical shift for a provider that has long prided itself on building their own independent network. But they certainly wouldn’t be the first alternative network operator to find some merit in extending their reach by harnessing a rival operator’s platform (e.g. toob did the same via CityFibre).
Some readers will no doubt wonder why Hyperoptic will only be launching this new partnership with an additional 1 million homes via Openreach’s network, which is a small fraction of the nearly 19 million premises covered by the incumbents new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (not to mention their aim of covering “up to” 30m by 2030). But the answer may come in their use of “at least“, with this perhaps being more of an initial phase.
Dana Tobak CBE, Hyperoptic’s CEO and co-founder, said:
“We have built a solid reputation of delivering best-in-class customer experience to our current footprint of 64 towns and cities, placing us in a unique position within the market. To support our growth ambition, and to bring the Hyperoptic experience to more consumers, we have taken a strategic decision to make our services available via the Openreach platform from next year.
This expansion is good news for both existing consumers and new customers looking to improve their service. Our research highlights that most customers who leave us do so because they’re moving home. We understand home movers would prefer to take their Hyperoptic service with them, so today’s announcement will make that possible, and our customers can continue to enjoy Hyperoptic for many years.”
Hyperoptic said that its preparations for launching this are already underway and the first c.1 million homes should start to become accessible “during early 2026” (Q1). The ISP declined to provide any details on their related packages and prices, although we suspect that these will end up differing a bit from Hyperoptic’s own products.
The gradual move to integrate Openreach’s platform into their own suggests that they’ll probably be looking to deliver a deeper integration. But it may also reflect the time it takes to develop the new systems for handling a second network (can be quite a complex task if you do it all in-house).