Here, Group CEO Jeremy Chelot discusses his ambitions to create the UK's largest full fibre altnet, the third-largest full-fibre network overall, and one of the top five ISPs. He discusses milestones hit so far, strategies for 2025, and his long-term view of the UK altnet market.
Tue, 25/02/2025 - 10:11
A month on from the tie-up between FullFibre and Zzoomm - which has created an organisation with 600,000 ready-to-serve properties and over 65,000 customers - CEO James Warner talks to Fibre Provider to give a progress update on the merger. He highlights an acceleration of customer acquisition and the migration to a single operating model and systems stack as an ongoing priority.
Where were FullFibre and Zzoomm on their respective full fibre journeys?
As of January 2025, FullFibre/BeFibre had 400K premises Ready for Service with over 30K connected customers. Zzoomm had 200K RFS and over 35K customers connected. Both businesses are still at an early stage of overall customer acquisition plans but are acquiring customers at an impressive rate of over 4K per month.
What were the synergies that made this merger viable for both organisations?
FullFibre and Zzoomm presented a very complimentary case to bring together two great businesses. With similar operating practices and a natural synergy in footprint geography, we could easily identify the ability to integrate and grow the two organisations in a more efficient way through scale. With virtually zero network overbuild, we will bring the two companies together to enable even faster growth as a single platform.
What will be the immediate priorities and challenges to overcome for integrating the businesses?
This is the second merger for FullFibre, having integrated with Digital Infrastructure last year, and we were able to deliver this at record pace delivering on all the core objectives ahead of schedule and in line with budget/efficiency targets. Getting this done again at speed to deliver on the benefits the merger will be our initial key focus. Naturally, this involves migrating to a single operating model and systems stack, which is something we are confident in achieving whilst simultaneously growing the business at record pace.
Why is this merger significant for the fibre industry?
Industry consolidation has been happening in pockets for a while. This one is significant because we are not only delivering it hot off the heels of the first deal, to build the now fifth largest platform in the UK, but we are also growing the business at pace with significant customer adoption and very efficient use of capital. We see further opportunity in the market which we will continue to explore to develop even greater value in the business.
What will a fully integrated organisation look like? What are your long term aims and ambitions?
We will operate as a single platform and business with continued focus on both wholesale and retail activities. Our core focus is in delivering excellent customer service and growing the customer base, building a highly profitable business – we have all we need to deliver this today. Further opportunity in the market is absolutely available, and we believe we are in an excellent place to access this beyond other operators.
What is your current wholesale strategy and how is this evolving?
FullFibre has always had wholesale service offerings from day one. The intention is to open this up to the full footprint as soon as possible. Moving from 400K to 600K doesn’t fundamentally shift the wholesale dial, however the statement through this next merger shows our trajectory overall in this space and will certainly present a broader opportunity for all our ISP’s today.
