Access is critical to empowering service provider success, according to Donal Hanrahan, Director of Strategy at Strategic Imperatives. Here he discusses his plans and priorities to ensure The Fibre Café, its cloud based, API-driven integration platform, continues to catalyse competition and drive positive outcomes.
Wed, 14/05/2025 - 09:23
AllPoints Fibre Networks’ (APFN) ambition to give CSPs wide-spread fibre access was shared at the official launch for its aquila wholesale platform (14th May 2025 - Royal Ascot Racecourse).
The platform currently integrates Openreach, BT Wholesale, CityFibre and APFN’s own infrastructure into a single platform, providing access to around 19 million premises.
Ronan Kelly, APFN MD, said: "By consolidating the UK’s largest full-fibre networks into one platform, we’re enabling CSPs to grow faster and serve more customers without the traditional complexity."
Alongside wholesale FTTP, the platform offers Ethernet services, static IP solutions, advanced network telemetry, and customer-premises equipment (CPE) logistics.
"Wholesale fibre access has needed a modern, transparent, and scalable alternative for a long time," added Kelly. "With aquila and APFN’s robust network architecture, CSPs gain total control over their services.”
Two years in the making
Speaking at aquila's launch Kelly detailed how the organisation has transformed over the last two years to launch a wholesale platform that CSPs could have certainty in for the future. This involved ensuring no legacy systems, no legacy networks and no legacy debt.
He explained: "The journey started when Fern invested in four different entities, Jurassic Fibre, Giganet, Swish and APFN, during the fibre goldrush in 2021. All four had set about building infrastructure in their own discreet ways, meaning there was a base of around 350 different vendors in a swollen portfolio.
"We work in an industry of scale so Fern made the decision to merge its assets in 2023 and achieve that base of scale. However, this was only around 500,000 homes, or 2% of the addressable market. To build ourself as a valid wholesaler to partners we had to increase this."
Therefore, to begin two years of development for aquila, APFN ripped up its existing model and began again, according to Kelly. "Consolidating 350 providers wasn't the way forward so we jettisoned all legacy from the initial journey and began to leverage our expertise to build a new platform.
"The next step was to add scale so we reached out to the major network builders and added Openreach, BT Wholesale and CityFibre"
Partner input
Speaking at the launch, George Wareing, CityFibre Sales Director, said: "The fragmented and confused market means it is currently difficult for partners to access, integrate and harmonise the fragmented networks. aquila is a great opportunity to advance take-up and and some simplicity."
Next steps on the journey
aquila will continue to add to its network as altnets gain scale according to Fern Fibre CEO Jarlath Finnegan. He said: "We hope the process of consolidation begins soon as this will provide viable players with the quality to add real value to our platform and our providers."
COO Nigel Sudell added: "As we add to our network we create more opportunities for our partners to grow, so we will keep building and we will keep adding altnets as they hit the correct quality threashold."
Finnegan noted that there would be further customer announcements in the coming days with Meraki and Yappl having already signed up.
