Only around 53 per cent of those eligible for social tariffs are currently aware of their existence. For this reason, uptake rates remain concerningly low. As of April 2022, only 5.1 per cent of those eligible for social tariffs had made the switch according to Ofcom, representing 220k of a potential 4.3 million households. This is against a UK market penetration rate of just over 11 per cent for fibre.
Quickline CEO Sean Royce forecasts the collapse of rural communities as the UK’s fibre coverage targets make hard-to-reach areas an unattractive prospect. Fibre providers continue to be put off by the cost and complexity of taking their rollouts to sparse geographies, instead opting to overbuild others in cities and market towns.
According to Netgem TV’s MD Sylvain Thevenot the addition of TV packages can boost full fibre sales by up to a quarter, and he is urging altnets to differentiate through bundling ‘Fibre with TV’ as the race for connections heats up.
Flomatik CEO Dean Checkley confesses that 2021 was a tough year for the business, a feeling shared by many, but with a new target operating model for 2022, he states the business is now ready to move from surviving, to thriving.
The UK’s fibre rollout is driving innovation, but the reverse is also true and innovative fibre providers will gain the edge in a saturated market.
According to Ofcom estimates, Altnet fibre deployment exceeded the Openreach build machine for the first time this January, but ‘overbuild’ without customer uptake could threaten further fibre expansion.
The demand for skilled workers continues to grow as altnets scale up their operations, but the limited labour market means attracting and retaining talent has become an industry wide issue.
Product availability issues and disruption to supply chains are likely to plague altnets for some time to come, warned Comtec Head of FTTx Sales and Business Developments John Greene, who explained how the company is helping to offset these impacts.
With a strategy of stimulating infrastructure competition to drive Full Fibre coverage nationwide, Ofcom required Openreach to launch its Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) product in 2011.