The event primarily remains a forum for debate on the future of the UK fibre market, as familiar sparks flew over potential altnet consolidation and the continued regulation of Openreach
Connected Britain opened with a stark warning to the Government on the need to foster investment in the telecoms sector
On 24 September 2025, Connected Britain kicked off in atypical, if slightly bizarre, fashion with a musical number that one analyst could only describe as “shocking”. Once the falsettos were finished, the event proceeded with familiar focuses on the yet unrealised prospect of altnet consolidation, consumer take-up of fibre, digital inclusion and regulation, specifically Ofcom’s ongoing Telecoms Access Review (TAR) – with from industry representatives arguably outlining many of the same positions discussed at previous gatherings. While hype around AI appears to have died down significantly in the UK, panellists nonetheless made the pitch for a policy and regulatory environment that can support continued investment in advanced connectivity and therefore power digital transformation and economic growth. On a day lacking major announcements (Openreach’s 20m fibre coverage aside), Allison Kirkby (CEO, BT Group) opened Day 1 with a powerful message for the Government ahead of the upcoming budget, warning it not to squander the opportunity to champion the UK’s fibre rollout as a success story that could encourage investment and help the country “get back to growing”. She raised eyebrows by asserting that domestic operators pay 10 times more in “government inflicted costs” than international counterparts, including in Germany and the Netherlands. The missing keynote from the Government, as originally planned, was a clear disappointment for several attendees, although was perhaps unsurprising given the recent reshuffle and appointment of Liz Lloyd as the new telecoms minister at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) less than two weeks prior.
Altnet consolidation is broadly seen as an inevitability, albeit with some uncertainty as to the expected pace of change
The ability of altnets – and their backers – to see a return on their fibre investments drove much of the conversation throughout the event both in explaining the sluggish developments with consolidation and emphasising the shift in priority from network build to adoption and monetisation. With his apparent impatience in stating that networks “just need to get on with it” in reference to consolidation, Rajiv Datta (CEO, nexfibre) nonetheless questioned if investors needed a reality check before dealmaking would ramp up, arguing that significant valuation gaps remained that could explain the lack of momentum in the past year. Simon Holden (CEO, CityFibre) responded that the growing belief that a scaled, national challenger to Openreach is possible was significant progress towards readying the market for consolidation. He linked progress here closely to continuity in the current regulatory approach, urging Ofcom to “hold firm” and not to relax rules that could allow BT to “reassert its dominance” in the market. On a separate panel, Sean Royce (CEO, Quickline Communications Limited) questioned the inevitability of altnet consolidation, arguing that as more of these providers become profitable, consolidation will become less of an immediate priority. Royce further predicted that the panellists would be in the same situation in a year’s time, but with even more altnets active in the market. While Jeremy Chelot (Group CEO, Netomnia, YouFibre and brsk) predicted that the market would eventually settle with either two or three converged offerings, beginning with BT and EE, Datta was more direct in urging the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to see forthcoming consolidation as a path to sustainable competition and not only assess deals through the lens of shorter term pricing changes. Katie Milligan (Deputy CEO, Openreach) was uncompromising in stating that, regardless of the conversation of altnet investor sentiment, Ofcom should not see regulation via the TAR as a tool to deliver returns to investors at the expense of the former incumbent. She claimed that the Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review (WFTMR) in 2021 has led to “lots of assets in the ground”, with large swathes of the country now having three, four or even five providers, and argued that Openreach should not be “hamstrung” for the next five years, but instead able to compete on the merits.
Debate over the TAR’s treatment of business connectivity and copper retirement underlined top-level agreement on Ofcom’s aim for regulatory stability
Strongly-worded remarks from CXOs on the role of regulation set the stage for a debate moderated by Assembly on the TAR and its implications for the future of the UK fibre market. The conversation started and concluded with surface-level harmony on Ben Harries’ (Policy Director for Competition, Ofcom) positioning of the TAR as a midpoint in a 10-year regulatory framework and a statement of continuity for the market. In particular, the panel was largely aligned in suggesting that Ofcom had underestimated the potential for competition in the leased lines market relative to wholesale local access (WLA), questioning its proposed definitions of Areas 2 and 3. On a potential pathway towards deregulation, Giles Rowbotham (General Counsel and Chief Development Officer, nexfibre) noted that Ofcom should be consistent in its approach to easing regulatory obligations based on the existence of sustainable competition and not just the prospect of it in the future. However, Mark Shurmer (Managing Director for Regulatory Affairs, Openreach) contended that such competition does exist already and that the firms represented by his fellow panellists were not “fledgling start-ups” but rather well-established and funded competitors, with altnets capturing as much as 30% of market share in some parts of the UK. The former incumbent found allies in arguing that Ofcom’s framework would need to be responsive to the rapid and ranging changes in the market expected before 2031, with Colin Scott (Senior Regulatory Economist, VodafoneThree) recognising the possible need for review within the five-year period in a later conversation. Regarding copper retirement, industry stakeholders all agreed that Ofcom had work yet to do in setting out its expectations for managing migration but diverged on how to protect competition through the process. Though Robert Burles (Director of Regulatory Policy, AllPoints Fibre) was more bullish on the benefits of copper retirement, Alex Blowers (Director of Regulatory Affairs, CityFibre) suggested in a subsequent panel that no regulatory framework could make a truly competitively neutral migration process. Rowbotham similarly cautioned that Openreach’s recent behaviour, in its discounted offer to ISPs that migrate their customer bases completely to Openreach’s fibre offerings, should be a concern for Ofcom.
Continued barriers to extending connectivity and the challenges of network retirements colored conversations on inclusion
Amid the conversations on driving fibre adoption, there were important reminders of the need to ensure high quality connectivity reaches all corners of the UK and that consumers are empowered to embrace new digital tools. In a panel on closing the UK’s digital divide moderated by Assembly, Dana Haidan (Chief Sustainability Officer, Virgin Media O2) described how digital inclusion begins with reliable and affordable connectivity but also investment in infrastructure, a message echoed elsewhere by Tim Stranack (Chair, INCA), who warned of the not-spots that remain in urban areas in multi-dwelling units (MDUs), which have been harder for fibre providers to access due to existing planning rules. Both Haidan and Elizabeth Anderson (CEO, Digital Poverty Alliance) noted that access to a device is similarly critical in advancing inclusion, and Rob Benson (Digital Inclusion Lead, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority) detailed how device distribution has proven particularly successful with the help of local organisations, such as social care providers, who are able to support consumers’ needs more holistically. With the impending PSTN and 2G/3G switch-offs likely to impact vulnerable consumers most acutely, Lucy Baker (Consumer All-IP Director, BT Group) discussed how firms needed to focus on not only assisting consumers in feeling comfortable with new technology but also exciting them with the new capabilities that upgraded offerings may provide. Regarding the progress of the PSTN switch-off to date, Griff Jones (Head of Telecommunications Modernisation, DSIT) stated that a migration deadline of 2027 was not only realistic given the steady rate of migration underway, but also necessary in the context of rising fault rates on the ageing network. When questions from the audience raised the prospect of 2G retirement, panellists emphasised the importance of lessons learned in early preparedness and collaboration as takeaways for future migrations.
Much of the limited conversation around mobile was driven by Ofcom’s enthusiasm to discuss its recent work on spectrum and coverage
While Connected Britain remains a largely fixed-oriented event, there was a more refined focus on the current state of the UK’s mobile market in a panel on Day 2. Much of the conversation centred around Ofcom’s new ‘Map Your Mobile’ coverage checker, which Brian Potterill (Policy Director, Ofcom) described as imperfect but a clear step in the right direction. Ian Newbury (Head of Product, CityFibre) stressed that more needed to be done with Ofcom’s coverage checker, encouraging audience members to speak up if they had ever actually received the coverage levels promised by operators. Mark Henry (Director of Networks Strategy and Futures, BT) praised the checker, welcoming the fact it could help make clearer arguments to customers about which networks would work best for them. Despite these warm words, Henry also cautioned that BT/EE would not consider basing any investment decisions on these coverage maps, pushing back against Amy Jordan’s (Strategy and Delivery Director, Ofcom) suggestion from earlier in the conference about the importance of the new checker in incentivising operator investment. Jordan was also keen to discuss Ofcom’s recent advances in spectrum management, although she stayed away from discussing the upper 6GHz band – proposals on which Henry was particularly critical – in favour of highlighting plans to auction mmWave spectrum to improve capacity and its framework for direct-to-device (D2D) satellite authorisations to expand coverage to the most difficult to reach corners of the country. With its comments throughout the event on the fixed market unsurprisingly measured and favouring consistency, the regulator’s focus on its recent work in the mobile market, as well as its new job in monitoring investment commitments stemming from the VodafoneThree merger, suggested a sense of work still to do to write a UK mobile success story to rival the story of fibre cheered throughout the conference.
