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Rural broadband ISP and alternative network builder Wessex Internet, which is deploying a mix of full fibre (FTTP) and fixed wireless networks across Southern England, has published their annual accounts to the end of 2025. The report reveals that revenues jumped by 47.7% to £8.5m in the year and their network coverage passed 66,000 premises.
The provider’s latest accounts, which also highlighted a gross profit of £5.69m (up 57% from £3.63m), could be said to be healthier or more stable than those of quite a few other altnets we’ve seen. Customers are also said to have increased by almost 50% in the year (similar to last year), although we haven’t yet found a solid total in the report, but were recently told that they had a base of 16,000 customers (here) and a take-up of over 30%.
Wessex also increased investment in their network to £35.6m (2024: £24.7m), which partly stems from the network expansion through their Project Gigabit contracts (currently worth a total public subsidy of £86m). On the flip side, the company reported an operating loss of £8.94m (worse than £7.85m in 2024) and suffered an EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) loss of £2.1m, but this is better than the £3.3m loss seen in 2024.
However, the provider said they expected to reach positive EBITDA territory sometime in the second half of 2026, but they also reported having net liabilities of £37.55m (2024: £22.27m). Finally, the company has a £68m debt facility with no capital repayments until 2031. According to the latest results, they’ve so far drawn £34.7m from that and have £33.3m available.
Overall, it seems to be a case of steady as she goes for Wessex Internet and, as usual, the main drag on profitability remains the enormous cost of financing a full fibre network build in remote rural areas. The operator is currently working to expand their rural full fibre network to 137,000 premises (here).