MS3 on the rise, with CEO Guy Miller

With Asterion‘s backing secured it is time for CEO Guy Miller to turn MS3’s hard work into deliverables.

Miller has outlined his plans to ramp up operations and widen MS3’s lens from a focus on Hull to also address a wider market across the north of England.

“MS3 has seen over a decade of success providing business services where there hasn’t been enough competition and has secured customers in the mobile mast, enterprise and wholesale B2B markets in that time,” he said.

“This is the first year of our restated ambitions and will see our hard work turn into real deliverables. More fibre, more homes and business passed, more customers and more locations. Our priorities are like others in this industry, build fast, build at the right cost and add customers.”

MS3 has scaled up its targets and now aims to pass 500,000 homes and businesses in its rollout.

“Scaling has been an obstacle for altnets. If you haven’t built businesses to scale before you will have software and system problems as you grow. The wholesale market is still relatively immature here as the larger ISPs waited for significant coverage before really investing their time and energies. 

“Fortunately, we have entered this space at a time when a lot of these teething problems have been ironed out and hence we can go 100% wholesale from day one. On the build side, we have engineered the ownership of the company so that civils companies actually own part of it. When you can align the goals of the investors, the management team and the civils crews, everything becomes much more deliverable.”

Miller has strengthened his commitment to a strategic approach that has been in the company’s DNA since day one.

“We are wholesale through and through and we make it super simple,” he explained. “Being wholesale-only really brings the trust of our partners. They know we are not trying to sell the end customer a service at the same time they are and secretly hoping they buy from us directly.

“It is too easy to disappear into your own business bubble and assume you know what is right and not to spot the evolutions happening in the market.  As all our customer conversations are with partners, they are the ones telling us what we need to deploy to be successful and to get more business.

“We’re able to flex quickly and having a simple fibre portfolio really enables our partners to adapt to the changing dynamics and introduce their own product changes. Altnets have got to adapt to the wholesale markets if they want to drive real value.  Retailing is a tough game when you have only covered 1-2 per cent of the country.”

Of course, education is key to creating an appetite for these products as customers need to understand the benefits fibre can have for their business.

Miller said: “Of course there is work to be done to with the regulator and government to promote what we do as an industry but personally I think the efforts should be most spent educating the public about not just the benefits of full fibre but also the benefits of alternative networks – those who have decided to build quicker and in different locations than the incumbent operators and why the public should use and trust them.

“WhatsApp didn’t become most people’s message app of choice due to regulation and government pressure, it did it because it was a game changing product that everyone over a short period realised was far superior to SMS and jumped on board. We need to look at other technology success stories and learn how to create a tidal wave of customer awareness and adoption.

“Altnets, if done well will always have competitive advantage over the incumbents. We are challenger brands at heart and well-run challenger brands normally win. We don’t have legacy and should be able to provide better products with better prices and with a better customer experience.”

Miller founded his first telecom company in 2003, steering Liquid Business Services until 2012 when he sold up. Miller then went on to lead tIPicall UK which was acquired by TalkTalk for £6m in 2015.

TalkTalk retained Miller after the acquisition, and he has spent the last six years working through various Director roles in the B2B Wholesale division including 18 months running the overall fibre strategy across the Group.

He said: “I was responsible for TalkTalk’s relationship with Openreach and other altnets. I learnt a huge amount in this time and properly understand what large ISPs need from an alternative network operator in order to fulfil both sides’ growth ambitions.”