Altnet penetration reached 20% by March 2025, growing alongside Openreach’s 36% take-up, both increasing market share by 4 percentage points since May 2024. Despite overall retail market shares appearing stable, underlying churn at the infrastructure layer is significant, with Openreach reporting annualised line losses of 828k. Yet Altnets continue to add customers, reflecting maturing cohorts, increasing consumer awareness, and strong value propositions.

Pricing pressures have driven FTTP prices down 41% in real terms over three years, with Altnets generally offering lower prices than incumbents to attract new customers. While discounting remains key in the short term, the path to profitability will require stabilised pricing and increasing ARPUs by lower promotional pricing, upselling effective and retention, especially as customers come off contract.

Customer satisfaction is a critical differentiator since Altnets outperform large ISPs and incumbents with average scores of 4.6 out of 5, supporting lower churn levels despite challenges like uncontrollable churn from house moves. Levels of uncontrollable churn have recently been driven by factors such as house moves stimulated by Stamp Duty changes. Most Altnets currently choose not to sell offnet, leading to customer losses post-move.

As the fibre market matures, Altnets’ ability to balance growth, retention, and ARPU uplift while navigating competition and overbuild pressures will be essential. Our analysis highlights these trends and offers key insights into the ongoing transformation of the UK broadband landscape.

How Eight Advisory can support you

With the industry expertise of its teams in strategy and operations, transaction services and valuations and modelling Eight Advisory is well equipped to support your projects in the telecommunications sector, particularly in the UK fibre market. Our pan-European group helps companies solve complex problems by providing both the right technical expertise and a human and invested approach to finding concrete solutions. We can quickly deploy experienced professionals to help you navigate this complex environment and add value to your business.

Download our whitepaper to learn more and see how we support the sector.