Altnet’s – To Monetise OR Die

After the frenetic last few years of investor excitement and relatively cheap funds, nearly 100 Altnet have risen to compete with OR and Virgin and now pass 16.4m home (10/25) with fibre (Simon Jones Partner BDO September 25) – the cost per premises passed is nearly £1k/home and the industry lost £1.3b in 2023 (Enders).

With this backdrop and the end of cheap funds from the investors, it is now clear that those Altnet’s that will survive need to scale urgently through “organic” growth, customer migrations and or M&A activity.

At the 2025 Connected Britain Conference it was clear that all Altnet’s need to fill their infrastructure as much as possible – with many now looking at Wholesale and Business Services as new forms of higher margin revenues, while at the same time lobbying Ofcom for protection from the pricing competition from OR etc. which they perceive as driving down their already slim margins.

How we help

Acuity Insight and partners such as String are well placed to advise Altnet’s/Partners of the capabilities, skills and systems necessary to enter the wholesale business and consumer markets and can in parallel advise large Enterprise and CNI end customers on those Altnets and partners who are credible longer term as reliable supply relationships.