Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
Nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), recently published their latest quarterly (Q1 2025) build update and confirmed that their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network now covers 2.2 million UK premises. But a big chunk of their future build plan for 2025-26 has now vanished.
Just to recap. Back in 2022 Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners setup nexfibre as a new £4.5bn joint venture (here), which aimed to deploy an open access (wholesale) full fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.
However, it’s worth noting that nexfibre’s latest Q1 2025 build update was recently published, which now reflects the impact from wider events that we covered last week (here). In short, nexfibre now only expects to reach 2.5 million premises in 2025 (they had previously been adding c.1m premises per year), which compares with 2.2 million premises ready for service today (up from 2m in Q4 2024).
The CEO of Liberty Global, Mike Fries, attributed part of this slowdown to JV partner Telefonica and their recently announced strategic review, including the related uncertainty flowing from the Spanish operator’s new leadership (inc. political influence from the government of Spain).
In addition, Fries talked about Liberty Global’s desire toward “retaining capital discipline in an increasingly irrational altnet environment“, although he also spoke of pursuing more growth through M&A (consolidation) with other alternative network operators. So less new build, but possibly more consolidation, seems to be the plan.
Suffice to say that the above changes within the JV have already had an impact on the latest nexfibre build update. For example, a lot of areas across South West and South East England, as well as Wales, seem to have completely vanished from the Q1 map of planned build locations in 2025-26. But on a more positive note, much of nexfibre’s planned deployment across Scotland remains intact.
You can get a better idea by looking at the visualisation of nexfibre’s earlier Q3 2024 and Q1 2025 build maps below.
Nexfibre Build Maps – Q3 2024 (Left) vs Q1 2025 (Right)
The above comparison may also provide some clues as to where nexfibre may be looking when they contemplate future mergers and acquisitions. Speaking of which..
Rajiv Datta, CEO of nexfibre, said:
“As we look ahead, we are mindful that a significant proportion of our build plan would result in overbuild with existing altnet infrastructure in the current fragmented environment. This would clearly be an inefficient use of the significant capital we have available and do nothing to help move the market to a healthier place.
We’ve long said that the current market structure is unsustainable, and we continue to believe that industry rationalisation and consolidation is both inevitable and necessary. That’s why we’re reassessing our plans with a view to using some of our financial capability in a smarter way to seize opportunities as they emerge.
Our mission remains unchanged: to create a national-scale challenger to Openreach, in collaboration with our partner Virgin Media O2”