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The UK telecoms regulator has today published the results of their Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) for the Hull-area of East Yorkshire, which sets out how they intend to promote competition and investment in gigabit broadband (inc. business connectivity) across an area of c.198,000 premises that was previously totally dominated by KCOM’s network.
Ofcom typically conducts a single holistic review of the markets for both Business Connectivity (i.e. Leased Lines / Ethernet and Dark Fibre etc.), and the more residential focused Wholesale Local Access sector (i.e. broadband products like FTTP and FTTC etc.), every 5 years. In fact, they’ve already published their initial proposals for the rest of the UK (here), but Hull has always been a bit different.
At the last review, back in 2021 (here), the Macquarie-backed KCOM was still deemed to hold Significant Market Power (SMP) in the Hull area and its full fibre (FTTP) lines had already covered the vast majority of local premises. The operator has since expanded their fibre into other parts of East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (England) – covering a total of 305,000 premises – but Ofcom’s review only focuses upon their SMP patch in Hull.
However, Hull in 2025 is not the same as it was in 2021, which is because in that time three rival alternative networks (see above) have now built their own FTTP networks across most of the city (Grain only covers a smaller patch) and have thus significantly weakened KCOM’s grip. At the same time, KCOM has been busy shifting customers off their old copper-based services (analogue phone, ADSL etc.) and on to fibre, which will shortly be followed by the full retirement of their copper line network.
The Issue of Infrastructure Sharing
Suffice to say that Ofcom’s new review has to address all this change, which would normally suggest a need to soften KCOM’s regulation in certain areas. One difficulty is that last year also saw a significant level of local protest erupt over the issue of infrastructure sharing in the city, which was fuelled by MS3 and Connexin’s deployment of 9m high wood poles – something that many people find unattractive (KCOM’s existing network is all underground). On the flip side, network operators see poles as a quick and cost-effective way of breaking into a market that has long been dominated by a single operator.
The law does require KCOM to fairly share access to their existing cable ducts in Hull (ATI Regulations). But rival operators expecting the same level of access, flexibility and affordability as the regulated solution (PIA) from Openreach have often run into problems with KCOM’s confidential commercial terms, which up until recently were allegedly placing an unfeasibly high price on access. The process to harness this is also still quite manual (laborious).
However, after coming under a lot of community and political pressures, KCOM eventually reached an agreement with Connexin and MS3 to co-develop a new pathway to accessing their existing ducts to run new fibre (i.e. limiting the need for new poles). Initial trials of this did take place, and the project is in its infancy, although the effort has now been somewhat impacted by wider financial / market pressures that have separately limited the ability of MS3 and Connexin to expand.
Similarly, KCOM confirmed to ISPreview in November 2024 that, due to the changing economic climate (i.e. high interest rates and an inability to attract fresh funding), they too had “paused” wider network expansion activity to focus on growth (greater commercialisation) within their existing footprint (here).
In short, Hull is a market that has reached an interesting stage of mature and competitive development, albeit with competitive network expansion progress having largely stalled across the board in recent months. Until today, this made it difficult to know quite how Ofcom might adjust their regulation to reflect all of this, but now we know. The phrase too little, too late comes to mind.
Ofcom’s proposals
The regulator’s review finds that, despite some strong progress from rival altnets, “network competition is not yet established and altnets face challenges in winning customers given KCOM’s incumbency advantages“. Between 71-80% of all premises in the Hull Area currently still purchase a fixed broadband connection connected to KCOM’s network. Also, although many areas now have a choice of one or more network providers, around 21%-30% of premises still have no alternative to KCOM.
In short, Ofcom states that competition within Hull still “needs to become more embedded and sustainable” to deliver long term benefits to consumers. The rules they’re proposing today will thus “continue to regulate in a way that encourages and supports competition and investment“.
KCOM will thus be expected to improve access to its network ducts and poles for running new fibre (as above, this arrives a little too late to help much), although they’ll no longer be expected to provide access to Dark Fibre (i.e. enabling rivals to install their own equipment at either end of the KCOM’s unlit fibre within cable ducts). But the latter will be subject to a 5-year transition.
Ofcom’s Proposed Changes for Hull and KCOM
We propose to find that KCOM has significant market power in the wholesale local access and leased line access markets in the Hull Area.
We are proposing a set of remedies to address the competition concerns that arise as a result.
We propose to:
➤ Improve access to KCOM’s telegraph poles and underground ducts:
A key element of our proposed approach to promoting network competition is to require KCOM to give other providers access to its duct and pole infrastructure. As in the rest of the UK, we propose to introduce a specific network access remedy to provide altnets with more certainty. We also propose that rental charges should be benchmarked against Openreach’s rental charges, and any costs associated with making the infrastructure usable will be recovered from all users of the infrastructure (subject to a financial limit). To ensure a level playing field between KCOM and other network operators, we propose that KCOM be subject to a no undue discrimination obligation and provides transparency over its compliance.
➤ Maintain access to existing wholesale services in both the wholesale local access and leased line access markets:
This includes a requirement on KCOM to provide an Ethernet service for the leased line access market, and to provide a wholesale local access service to meet its proposed general network access obligations. All wholesale services should continue to be provided on fair and reasonable terms with no undue discrimination.
➤ Remove the specific obligation on KCOM to provide dark fibre access:
As a result of increased network competition and the potential for this to develop further, we propose to remove the specific requirement for KCOM to provide access to its leased line access services using the dark fibre element of a leased line. We also propose a five-year transition period for any existing dark fibre purchased from KCOM.
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