Nexfibre hits 2 million milestone but next target still a tall order

The UK fibre wholesaler on Thursday declared that it hit this new milestone after two years of operation, claiming a faster rollout than any other operator in the market.

That may well be the case – and the 2 million mark is indeed a cause for celebration – but it somewhat glosses over the fact that Nexfibre needs to up its build rate to reach its next target.

It is shooting for 5 million premises covered by 2026 under the initial part of its rollout programme, a £4.5 billion scheme backed by joint venture partners InfraVia Capital Partners, Liberty Global and Telefónica. Use of the word 'by' suggests it only has a year to go, although being generous it could actually mean 'during,' in which case it has the best part of two years.

It took 14 months to reach its first million premises, it said back in April, and added the second million since then. Another 3 million in less than two years is do-able, but tight, depending on how low-hanging the fruit is that has already been picked.

In the footnotes to its latest announcement Nexfibre reminded us that it plans to join forces with sister company and anchor – and only – tenant Virgin Media O2, and together the pair will wholesale their networks to other ISPs, thereby creating a national scale operator. This partnership, whenever it occurs, will also help Nexfibre to talk up the breadth of its network coverage.

Virgin Media O2 is not particularly forthcoming about the details of its own fibre build, but at last count it claimed "more than 5 million" premises passed; that was as of mid-2024. In its Q3 numbers the telco talked up the pace of its fibre build, but noted that most of it was on behalf of Nexfibre. It is due to publish full-year results next month, so we should gain access to more information then.

Either way, even combined, VMO2 and Nexfibre still have some way to go before they can consider themselves a true national scale operator.

To put their data in context, BT's Openreach unit reported having FTTP network coverage of 17 million premises at the end of last year, which it says equates to half of all UK homes and businesses. It aims to add another 8 million premises over the next two years and reach 30 million by the end of the decade, and its current growth rate suggests it should hit those targets.

Meanwhile, the UK's biggest altnet CityFibre has something close to 4 million premises covered; it reached the 3.6 million mark last summer.

Nexfibre has now declared itself the UK's second-largest altnet, which presumably disregards VMO2's standalone fibre deployment, given that otherwise the figures don't quite stack up.

It's all positive hype, in that it indicates a strong, competitive marketplace in the UK. But Nexfibre is not yet where it aims to be. And it knows it.

"Our work is far from done," Nexfibre CEO Rajiv Datta said. "Our mission is to be part of a network platform that drives sustainable, nationwide competition, provides a genuine alternative to Openreach, and transforms access to broadband across the country."

The sentiment is sound, but there is still some way to go.