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Tewkesbury-based network operator Netomnia (Brsk, Youfibre), which has so far deployed their full fibre broadband (FTTP) lines to cover 2.7 million UK premises (375,000 customers), has today announced another major funding boost by successfully completing a £300 million junior debt raise, including an additional £140 million from new and existing investors.

The funding includes £160m from existing investors I Squared Capital and Palistar Capital, originally part of the May 2025 funding announcement (here), and an additional £140m subscribed through increased commitments from I Squared Capital and Palistar Capital alongside new lenders Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) and Bain Capital. The investment builds on Netomnia’s £880m senior debt commitment, bringing total debt funding support to £1.2 billion.

The announcement also confirms that Netomnia has now achieved positive EBITDA (i.e. earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation). The ability to achieve a positive EBITDA can indicate that a company’s core operations are starting to become profitable (banks use this to help assess whether a company is able to pay off its debts). But this doesn’t fully consider everything (e.g. non-core financial expense), and there’s still a long road ahead to payback.

Jeremy Chelot, Group CEO, said:

“The last funding round was oversubscribed, showing the clear demand for Netomnia from both new and existing lenders. This £140 million extension reinforces confidence in our ability to deliver at scale while staying
firmly on track with our build plan and profitability targets. Our mission remains clear: connecting millions more homes and businesses with the UK’s most powerful internet.”

Robert Leon, Global Co-head of IBD and Sponsor Client Segment at RMB, said:

“Netomnia has established itself as one of the UK’s leading digital infrastructure players, combining rapid rollout with cost efficiency while driving the delivery of critical connectivity across the UK. RMB is proud to partner Netomnia and its shareholder grouping once again as part of our sponsor led strategy.”

The network operator concluded by saying that they “remain firmly on track to become the UK’s most scaled and capital-efficient retail, wholesale, and consolidation platforms“. The fact that their network coverage has increased by 140,000 premises since the last update on 23rd July 2025 is also significant and shows that they’re still deep into the roll-out phase, and during a period when many other alternative networks have stalled.

Breaking news.. more to follow..

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The Speed Fibre Group, which is an open access fibre infrastructure provider (managing or owning 5,400km of fibre) that is ultimately backed by Cordiant Capital, has today announced that they’ve completed the previously announced (here) acquisition of BT’s Irish wholesale fibre and enterprise business unit (BT Communications Ireland Ltd.).

The transaction, which forms part of BT Group UK’s continued efforts to reduce their international operations, includes BT’s domestic network infrastructure, over 400 customers across a c.3,400km network of owned and operated fibre, and associated teams supporting wholesale fibre and business enterprises.

The deal also comprises a long-term agreement for BT and Speed Fibre Group to source connectivity for their respective customers from each other, which supports BT’s desire to “retain a strong presence in the Irish market to deliver connectivity, cloud and security services to multinationals and large organisations“.

Post-transaction, BT still expects to maintain over 400 employees in Ireland, with offices in Dublin and regionally, and connections to BT’s global network infrastructure and propositions. The deal does NOT include BTCIL’s customer base of multinationals, large Irish organisations, the Emergency Call Answering Service (ECAS), associated employees, and the recently divested data centre business.

Statement by Cordiant Digital Infrastructure Limited

The acquisition of BTCIL enhances Speed Fibre’s ability to deliver advanced connectivity solutions through the integration of BTCIL’s complementary capabilities and domestic customer base. By combining resources, Speed Fibre expects to achieve greater operational efficiencies and deliver a broader range of connectivity products and services for customers across Ireland, supporting the growing requirements of hyperscale and edge data centres, multi-nationals, local Irish businesses, and government agencies.

The expanded network will be well placed to support the increasing capacity needed to underpin the rapid uptake in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. This addition to the Speed Fibre platform represents a significant step in CORD’s strategy to build platforms at scale in line with its Buy, Build & Grow model in key digital markets such as Ireland.

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Some customers of mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media), specifically those on their Pay As You Go (PAYG) plans, this week began to notice the sudden appearance of Wi-Fi Calling on their service (ISPreview Forum) and 4G Calling (VoLTE) is also expected to follow by the end of this year.

O2’s PAYG plans have long lacked support for 5G (mobile broadband), WiFi Calling (Voice over WiFi) and 4G Calling (Voice over LTE). But earlier this month that all started to change after the operator finally began to deploy 5G support (here) and they now seem to be in the process of adding WiFi Calling too. A spokesperson for VMO2 confirmed to ISPreview that they were indeed “starting to roll this service out in phases to our customer base“.

Just to recap. VoWiFi enables consumers with a supporting Smartphone and mobile operator to harness their home broadband connection, or another WiFi network, to make mobile voice calls (and sometimes also texts), instead of using your mobile (2G, 4G or 5G) network. The feature is extremely useful, particularly when away from a good mobile signal, but support can still be patchy between different networks and devices.

The change is not unexpected as the operator recently confirmed, as part of their 3G switch-off strategy, that “4G & WiFi calling will be available for Pay As You Go customers by the end of 2025“. But it often takes several months for such phased deployments to reach completion, thus starting that process around now does make sense (i.e. if they hope to deliver it by the end of the year).

The catch is that some of those PAYG customers who initially reported seeing VoWiFi going live have since seen it disappear again, which will hopefully be rectified as their deployment continues. As for 4G Calling, we haven’t seen any signs of that one yet, but historically VoWiFi and VoLTE have tended to be deployed at around the same time by other operators (VoLTE just allows calls to go via 4G instead of the older 2G network).

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The Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA) has published a new briefing that warns how Social Tariffs from UK broadband and mobile providers, which offer significant cost savings to those on state benefits (e.g. Pension Credit, Universal Credit etc.), continue to suffer from three “critical flaws” – minimal awareness, inconsistent quality and affordability.

According to Ofcom’s most recent December 2024 report (here), the take-up of cheaper Social Tariffs (telecoms) for those on state benefits jumped to 506,000 customers in June 2024 (up from 380,000 in Sept 2023). But that’s still just 9.6% of eligible households – the number of households claiming Universal Credit also increased to 5.3 million during this period (up from 4.6m at the last report).

In the past, very few people even knew Social Tariffs existed, which tended to only be offered by a couple of providers, such as BT and KCOM. But the last government, partly in response to the cost-of-living crisis, worked closely with Ofcom to change that and thus fostered a huge rise in both the availability, promotion, capabilities and awareness of such packages.

However, Ofcom’s data from January 2025 indicated that 5.3 million households – around 23% – were still struggling to pay for their communications services and take-up of Social Tariffs remains low (although we don’t yet know how much this has changed through 2025). The DPA’s new briefing thus identifies three “critical flaws” in such tariffs. Firstly, awareness is still said to be “minimal“, with tariffs “poorly promoted and often accessible only through online applications that lock out those already excluded“.

Secondly, quality is said to be inconsistent. For example, while some providers offer unlimited broadband, others “impose strict limits or cap speeds” at around 30Mbps – “far below what families need for work, education, or healthcare“. But we think that statement is a little unfair, since social tariffs are only supposed to be a basic entry-level option and 30Mbps is usually enough for most tasks, albeit clearly not a premium experience.

Finally, affordability is also said to still be an “obstacle” because, even at a reduced rate, tariffs can still be “out of reach for households already unable to cover essential bills“. The difficultly here is that commercial ISPs are not charities and it’s already hard enough for anybody to make a profit in today’s competitive market. But it’s similarly unrealistic to expect broadband ISPs to sell products at below cost price.

Elizabeth Anderson, CEO of the Digital Poverty Alliance, said:

“Affordable, reliable broadband must be treated as a basic utility, not a luxury. Social tariffs can reduce digital poverty, but only if they are promoted properly, standardised across providers, and accessible to every household that needs them.”

The idea of “standardising” social tariffs would be extremely difficult for a market with so many different underlying broadband networks and technologies – where coverage and performance aren’t always the same from one location to another (telecoms is more complex than gas, water or electricity). For example, you can’t very well offer 30Mbps, 50Mbps or 100Mbps in an area where only slower speeds are technically possible (e.g. ADSL-only areas or those on longer FTTC lines).

Equally, many providers are currently operating under significant financial strain due to the rising cost of network builds, energy and high interest rates etc. Suffice to say that what’s viable for one is not going to be viable for another, which is why a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t currently workable.

However, the DPA does recognise that social tariffs are “not a cure-all“, but it also warns that without reform they will continue to fall short. “Connectivity must be recognised as a public good – central to full participation in society,” said the DPA. In order to deliver on this they make several familiar recommendations, such as removing VAT from social tariffs (this often comes up, but no government has ever done it) and various other things.

DPA Recommendations for Social Tariffs

• Central government should remove VAT from social tariffs, lowering costs further and reinforcing the principle that digital connectivity is a basic utility.

• Government and industry should collaborate to establish a co-funded, standardised, industry-wide social tariff, ensuring that offers are consistent, reliable, and accessible regardless of provider or geography.

• Awareness campaigns should be delivered across mixed media, combining trusted national organisations with local channels. Messaging must be simple, transparent, and free of jargon, with offline options for application to ensure that those already excluded are not left behind.

• All government correspondence with benefit recipients – including letters about Universal Credit or welfare entitlements – should include clear information on social tariffs and how to access them.

• Providers should guarantee sufficient speeds and reliability on social tariffs, ensuring they meet the needs of households relying on digital access for education, healthcare, and employment. Substandard or restricted services risk reinforcing exclusion rather than addressing it.

Finally, a quick reminder. We know social tariffs can be a divisive topic for some, but that is not an excuse to abuse the comment system in order to post offensive remarks toward those who take state benefits. Such posts are against our rules and will be removed.

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Some customers of mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media), specifically those on 30 day rolling SIM Only contracts, have informed ISPreview of how they’ve just been notified that they will be hit by a sharp price hike from 1st October 2025 (in many cases this equates to an increase of c.12%).

The increase has also been confirmed by one of O2’s support agents on their Community Forum: “As part of a recent tariff review, we’re making a small adjustment to prices for customers on a specific set of 30-day rolling SIM Only plans. This change helps ensure greater consistency across our customer base and keeps our pricing in line with the wider market.”

The customer email itself (credits to forum member insertfloppydiskhere for sharing) states: “From 1 October 2025, the cost of your Airtime Plan will increase by £3 a month. Remember, this price rise is only for your Airtime Plan – what you’re paying for your device will stay the same.”

The only good news is that, on a short 30-day plan, customers who wish to leave can easily do so without penalty.

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The Horsham-based Telecom Acquisitions Group (TAL), which is a holding company for a number of familiar residential-focused internet service provider brands (Home Telecom, Eclipse Broadband etc.), has acquired both the brand and customer base of another troubled ISP in the shape of Earth Broadband.

Earth Broadband (earth.) is a relatively new provider, which first popped up on our radar in 2023 alongside a commitment to plant 500,000 trees and remove 100,000 pounds of plastic each month by 2025 (here) – based on the optimistic assumption of having gained 100,000 customers. Speaking of which, on 4th Aug 2025 the provider reported that they’d so far helped to plant a total of 100,000 trees – good, but below the original target.

In any case, the latest development is that TAL appears to have completed the acquisition of Earth Broadband, which covers both their customer base and brand – this will now be managed under TAL’s existing Home Telecom brand.

The move comes shortly after Earth Broadband suffered a string of problems with poor support, billing errors and price rises (here). At the same time, a representative of the provider also revealed that it had been “selling broadband at a loss“, which may help to explain the latest development.

A quick look at Earth Broadband’s latest micro accounts shows that the company’s total assets less current liabilities stood at -£111k for the year ended 30th April 2024, which compares with -£75k reported in the prior year.

Luke Chapman, CEO of Earth Broadband, said:

“After an incredible three years, my time at Earth Broadband has come to an end.

Earth Broadband’s customers and brand have been acquired by Telecom Acquisitions Limited, under their Home Telecom Ltd brand, and I’m genuinely pleased to know our customers are going to a great home.

Building Earth Broadband has been an amazing journey. I’ve learned so much, worked with some brilliant people, and had a lot of fun along the way.

I’m grateful to everyone who’s been part of this chapter and I’m excited to see what’s next!”

We’re expecting TAL to issue an official press release on this today or tomorrow. The new owner is expected to inform Earth Broadband’s existing customers that their current terms, conditions, and pricing will remain the same. The provider’s customers, who are mainly connected to the PXC network (formerly TalkTalk Wholesale), should hopefully not experience any service disruption during the change. Credits to an anonymous reader for the tip.

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The Kent County Council (KCC) in England has complained to the UK government about a “lack of progress” being made on the region’s Project Gigabit broadband rollout contract for rural communities. The £112m (state aid) contract for this was awarded to CityFibre in early 2024 (here), which committed to extend full fibre to 50,000+ hard-to-reach premises.

However, the last progress update we saw on the contract for Kent (Lot 29) came in January 2025, when CityFibre announced that they’d entered the rollout (build) phase. But since then neither CityFibre nor the government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has issued any further progress updates of real substance and it didn’t figure into BDUK’s recent progress update either (here), albeit mainly because the data for that only ran to the end of 2024.

Paul King, KCC’s Cabinet Member for Economic Development and Coastal Regeneration, has now written to Sir Chris Bryant MP, UK Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, asking “why there has been so little progress” in delivering the Government’s Project Gigabit programme across Kent, despite the procurement work starting more than three years ago.

“To date, BDUK have still not published any indications as to when local areas are likely to benefit from these connections – or details on whether any premises have been connected to date,” said the statement from KCC. Cllr King also raised the lack of information available to home and business owners about when they might receive the new broadband capability as a concern. He explained this made it difficult for them to make decisions about tying in with providers who will not be able to offer services on the new infrastructure.

The councillor added that there are at least 100,000 properties in the county who could have the fast speeds who do not feature in the current programme and there is currently “no suggestion if or when they might in any future plans for expansion of the project“.

Councillor Paul King said:

“Good broadband connectivity is essential to enable any business to thrive and for residents to access the services and opportunities they need. We understand the complexities and challenges involved in building broadband infrastructure in hard-to-reach areas but it is difficult to understand why it is taking so long for these much-needed connections to be delivered at the pace required.

This is simply not acceptable. Our region continues to lag substantially behind with respect to broadband connectivity while the UK’s Industrial Strategy 2025 is contingent on unlocking the value of data and accelerating AI adoption across businesses. If this Government is serious about economic growth then digital infrastructure must come first – without reliable internet access, AI is nothing more than a buzzword.”

The issue that KCC raises is in fact not unique to Kent. The Project Gigabit programme as a whole, which is much more centrally managed than earlier schemes (e.g. Superfast Broadband Programme / SFBB), has been generally quite poor at keeping people in contracted areas up-to-date with progress once the build has begun.

So while earlier schemes, run and managed at the local authority level, often produced regular progress updates, reports and interactive coverage maps etc. The Project Gigabit programme has communicated very little of the same and only recently started releasing general data on the number of contracted premises that had been built.

ISPreview has raised this with BDUK a few times before and we are expecting Kent to be included in the programme’s next progress update, which is due to drop before the end of this year (this should also include some additional details). But there’s clearly room for improvement, although the government would perhaps need to put more resources on the table to make that happen.

In the meantime, Cllr King has asked for the restoration of the Gigabit Broadband Voucher Scheme (GBVS) in Kent, “so communities can request a better broadband connection in their area“. The GBVS is currently suspended across much of the country (not all), including Kent, albeit partly to avoid it clashing with and risking a duplication of public investment with Project Gigabit’s primary build contracts.

We have also asked CityFibre for a comment and hopefully a progress update on the deployment in Kent.

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The Independent Networks Co-operative Association (INCA), which represents many of the UK’s alternative broadband networks, has today posted somewhat of a belated welcome to the new Digital and Technologies Sector Plan. But they also warn that “further clarity is needed” on how the Government will support competition as FTTP rollouts slow and consolidation pressures grow.

The plan itself was first published all the way back in June 2025, alongside the Government’s new Infrastructure Strategy for the next 10 years (here). Just prior to this, the government had already confirmed that it would invest £1.9bn into gigabit broadband and mobile projects (this comes from existing commitments) until 2029/30 (2025 Spending Review).

The Industrial Strategy also included a Digital and Technologies Sector Plan, which among other things committed £370 million to support cutting-edge, UK-developed technologies to deliver advanced connectivity improving coverage for communities, providing connectivity across transport networks, and supporting defence applications – like drones.

This breaks down to include a £240 million Advanced Connectivity Tech R&D programme, and a further £130 million will go towards strengthening the capabilities of the UK Telecoms Lab, enhancing the security and reliability of the country’s networks.

INCA has now welcomed the wider strategy’s focus on enhancing infrastructure, boosting access to finance, and securing international partnerships, which they believe “presents clear opportunities for the Altnet sector“.

The proposed Connections Accelerator Service and reforms to the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime are also said to be “particularly welcome, given longstanding delays in grid connections and planning decisions” that have “held back broadband delivery“. But they also seek “further clarity” on how the Government will support competition in broadband markets as “rollout slows and consolidation pressures grow“.

Paddy Paddison, INCA CEO, said:

“This strategy is a strong signal that digital infrastructure is not just a utility but a foundation for growth, innovation, and resilience. We’re pleased to see gigabit-capable broadband recognised as critical to the UK’s industrial and technological future.

But turning ambition into action requires a level playing field. Altnets are rolling out fibre faster than ever before, bringing innovation, speed and competition to businesses and people across the UK. For the Government to meet its own targets, independent providers must be supported through pro-investment regulation, fair access to Openreach infrastructure, and a planning system that facilitates, not frustrates, full-fibre deployment.

This is a moment to back the builders. The Altnet sector stands ready to deliver – but the Government must ensure its policies, funding programmes and regulatory frameworks actively support smaller players, not just the incumbent.

We look forward to engaging with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) on the implementation of the strategy and urges ministers to recognise the essential role of Altnets in achieving national coverage targets and digital leadership.”

The words seem to be largely designed to help ensure that INCA’s voice is heard as much as possible, particularly in light of Ofcom’s forthcoming Telecoms Access Review 2026 (TAR) proposals, which some altnets fear may soften the regulation too much on market incumbent Openreach (BT) and thus overlook their concerns in the process.

Altnets have previously raised concerns over the fairness of pricing for Openreach’s physical infrastructure access product (i.e. the cost of running new fibre via the incumbents existing cable ducts and poles), as well as how Ofcom intends to adjust the size / definition of UK areas deemed to now be competitive and the issue of discounts on the incumbents FTTP products etc.

On the flip side, the whole market is currently in a state of transition due to wider economic strains, and there’s a limit to what the government can do to specifically help that. Ofcom also has the difficult task of trying to find some fair balance between so many differing views and vested interests. However, there are some areas of shared agreement, such as in calls for more flexibility in planning and street works (e.g. flexi-permits).

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Network access provider Openreach (BT) has indicated, via a new briefing, that they are “making a limited volume” of Saturday provision (installation) appointments available for Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband line deployments. Retail ISPs will be able to select these if they so desire, at least for a limited time.

The briefing itself contains precious little information, and our hails to Openreach yesterday have thus far gone unanswered. The network operator does not typically offer Saturday FTTP provisions as standard, but in the past they have used such methods in order to cope with high demand, clear a backlog or as part of premium (flexible appointment) provisions.

Internet providers can of course choose whether or not to partake in this, and if they do then that should show up as part of the usual broadband order process (i.e. when you select to book an appointment). Consumers would no doubt welcome the greater availability of Saturday appointments, but such things do often come at extra cost and hassle for the network operator.

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The Government has modified the Single Supplier Framework agreement that they awarded to Openreach (BT) last year under their Project Gigabit broadband roll-out scheme (here). The deal was originally valued at “up to” £800m and designed to help upgrade 312,000 premises in some of the hardest to reach UK areas to FTTP. But this has just been boosted in value to £1.2bn.

The framework agreement was later followed by the gradual awarding of seven related Cross-Regional (Type C) contracts to Openreach (here, here and here) – covering poorly served parts of Wales, Scotland and England (i.e. often remote rural locations with no prior access to a gigabit-capable broadband network).

The areas covered by these Type C contracts typically reflect those where no or no appropriate market interest had previously been expressed before to the Government’s umbrella Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, or areas that have been descoped or terminated from a prior plan / contract (usually due to being too expensive for smaller suppliers to reach).

The seven call-off contracts that have so far been awarded under the framework agreement are summarised below, reflecting a total of over £730m in committed public investment and nearly 300,000 premises. In addition, any future fibre build delivered through this framework won’t have to go through another competitive process each time (i.e. later extension projects and infill in these areas will be easier to agree).

• Lancashire, North Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire, West and Mid Surrey, Staffordshire, West Berkshire and Hertfordshire (£149.7 million, 54,300 premises)
• West and North Devon, North West, Mid and South East Wales (£139.1 million, 42,200 premises)
• East and South Shropshire, North Herefordshire, North Wales, and South West Wales (£108 million, 47,000 premises)
• Mid Devon, North Somerset, and South Devon (£77 million, 37,000 premises)
• Essex and North East England (£61 million, 24,000 premises)
• Worcestershire (£41 million, 22,000 premises)
• Scotland (£157 million, 65,000 premises)

Openreach has already begun to extend their new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband network into many of the above contracted areas. The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not usually an automatic upgrade, although some providers are doing something similar to that.

However, the big development being spotted by ISPreview today is that the government has just made a significant modification to the related framework agreement with the BT Group. In short, the awarded contract value has increased by £400m to total £1.2bn from the original value of £800m.

The Government states that the reason for this modification stems from the following changes: A) The need for additional works, services or supplies by Openreach and, B) Additional scope has been added to the contract in accordance with the UK subsidy control regime.

This suggests that either the aforementioned contracts are going to be extended to cover additional premises or the roll-out is costing more than expected (possibly also a combination of the two). At the time of writting we’re still awaiting some clarification on the impact of this from Openreach, although they may not yet be in a position to provide much detail.

However, it’s also possible that the framework may have needed some adjustment for other reasons, such as to compensate for the fact that a number of smaller alternative networks have recently either withdrawn or scaled-back their own smaller deployment contracts under the Project Gigabit scheme. In theory, the descoped areas could be moved into Openreach’s Type C contracts, particularly if previous market engagement exercises in those areas showed little interest from other suppliers.

For example, Freedom Fibre recently scaled back their £24m Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for North Shropshire (here) and “mutually agreed to terminate” their £43m deal for Cheshire (here). Several other network operators similarly dropped out of their contracts, including Voneus’ £12m deal for Mid West Shropshire (here) and FullFibre Limited in the Derbyshire Peak District (£10.7m) and Herefordshire (£23.4m) – here. We suspect that one or two other contracts may also be at risk of going the same way.