Original article ISPreview UK:Read More
A new survey of 300 alternative networks, ISPs, suppliers and other companies has found that 83% of altnet decision makers believe their companies will grow over the next year, while 77% said they are planning to increase their investment in the coming 12 months. Similarly, 70% believe the forthcoming consolidation will have a positive impact.
Most alternative broadband networks (altnets) across the market are currently looking at consolidation as a way of balancing against the difficult market conditions that have arisen over the past few years. Much of this has been driven by high interest rates, rising build costs and strong competition – all of which is making it hard to raise fresh investment and expand networks.
In fact, we’ve already seen this squeeze resulting in quite a few sizeable consolidation agreements taking place (e.g. Netomnia + Brsk and CityFibre + Lit Fibre and Connexin etc.), and many industry observers expect the current crop of c.80 altnets to shrink down into a market dominated by just a handful or two of players over the coming years.
Meanwhile, the altnets that have yet to consolidate are often switching their strategies from network build to greater commercialisation, which means putting more effort into growing their customer base (inc. quite a few redundancies as the workforce is refocused). But despite all this, the new Altnet Confidence Index 2025 from Proactive International PR and Censuswide indicates that many altnets remain optimistic.
James Page, Proactive International PR CEO, said:
“There has been a view for some time now that the UK’s alternative broadband sector was in decline. With investors demanding to see returns on their investment and customers’ unwillingness to pay substantially higher prices for higher speed services, the future seemed to consist only of mergers, acquisitions and a sharply diminishing number of companies remaining in the market … We wanted to gauge how the sector was feeling – and the results are surprising.”
Summary of Key Results
➤ 23% of respondents are predicting significant growth and, when looking ahead to 5 years, 77% anticipate growth over that time.
➤ ‘Sustainability’ was the biggest priority for investment (39%), even above network build, on which 25% of respondents planned to spend.
➤ ‘Technological advancements’ were cited as the biggest driver by 45% of respondents, while ‘Private equity and investor interest’ and ‘Increased demand for high-speed internet’ each gave 35% of professionals reason to be positive. Other reasons given included ‘Competitive differentiation and market gaps’ (33%), ‘Fibre rollout and infrastructure expansion’ (33%) and ‘Resilience of the industry’ (30%).
➤ ‘Rising operational costs’ still worry 37% of respondents, as do ‘Increased regulatory pressures.’ A further 31% of respondents said ‘Consolidation of smaller players reducing opportunities’ was a concern.
ISPreview has similarly noted a great deal of positivity coming from altnets across the sector, although it’s not uncommon for even troubled businesses to continue to accentuate the positives – often right up until the moment they no longer exist as an independent entity. But it’s worth considering that the feedback might have been quite different if the survey had focused on the engineers and wider workforce, those who tend to suffer the most when strategies change and builds slow.