The CEO of Fern Networks Limited (Fern Trading) backed alternative broadband network operator AllPointsFibre (APFN), Jarlath Finnegan, has this week spoken of his “excitement” ahead of officially launching their new Aquila wholesale platform into the wider UK market, which is expected to take place on 14th May 2025.
Just to recap. APFN was originally formed through the consolidation of three alternative broadband networks and ISPs (here and here), including Giganet, Swish Fibre and Jurassic Fibre. All of the companies were backed by Fern Trading and had previously been deploying FTTP networks to premises across different parts of the UK.
As part of that change, the retail (customer) bases of those three networks have been slowly migrated to sibling broadband ISP Cuckoo. Last year also saw APFN acquire another retail ISP in the shape of Glasgow-based Brillband (here). On top of that, they’ve since made it possible for ISPs on their wholesale platform to harness services from rival networks too, such as CityFibre and Openreach.
According to Jarlath Finnegan, this means their new national full fibre wholesale platform, aquila, is now available to 18 million+ UK homes and businesses, “we are adding over 1m each quarter” (roughly in keeping with the respective network expansions of Openreach and CityFibre). But the big development will come later this spring, when they formally launch aquila alongside new solutions.
Jarlath Finnegan said (yesterday):
“What a start to the year!
Hats off to every single team member across the group, talk about hitting the ground running!
AllPoints Fibre Networks national full fibre wholesale platform, aquila, is now available to 18 million+ homes and businesses, we are adding over 1m each qtr. through our network partners Openreach and CityFibre, two fantastic companies to work with. We’ve started onboarding more customers to aquila, thanks Yappl & Meraki Communications, with more to follow shortly and the excitement is real. It’s the biggest and best in the UK, set to deliver outstanding service experiences at the lowest cost to serve.
Our big launch event is in May, and we can’t wait to showcase its full potential. Key milestones ahead, but the team is on fire, keep pushing, Team APFN!
…
As Group CEO, I couldn’t be prouder of how we’ve taken five individual businesses and built something truly special which hasn’t been done before. We can, and we will, and we’re proving it every day through action, not just words.”
At present, it’s not clear precisely what APFN will be announcing in May that we didn’t already know about, although they’ve been promising to “rip up the rule book” in the way full fibre services are delivered across the UK “without having to build or buy to every premises“. But in a recent interview, Jarlath did note to ISPreview that they were working on aquila’s new edge network deployment (here), which could bring new services.
The challenge for APFN is that they aren’t the only wholesale operator with a focus on network aggregation (e.g. PlatformX Communications – formerly TalkTalk Wholesale) and it will be interesting to see if they’re able to innovate beyond the more established players. Scaling up such things can take time and delivering them at a competitive price is another matter, but APFN are clearly readying themselves to make a big push.