- Netomnia and its affiliates surpassed 3 million premises serviceable in 2025, nearly doubling customer adds year on year.
- While a handful of altnets scale successfully, the industry’s two‑tier dynamics highlight growing stress among smaller competitors.
What happened: Netomnia drives scale in tough altnet market
UK alternative network provider Netomnia—together with its YouFibre and brsk brands—marked what it described as a “breakout year” in 2025, according to its latest performance figures. The group added around 970,000 new premises to its serviceable footprint, taking its total to over 3 million premises. Of those, 445,000 were actively connected customers, including 207,000 added during the year, nearly doubling its base. Revenues surged 168% year-on-year to £104 million.
Jeremy Chelot, Netomnia’s CEO, said the buildout and customer growth validate its “capital‑efficient retail and wholesale model,” positioning the business as the UK’s second‑largest altnet provider behind its larger rival CityFibre.
Netomnia’s scale-up builds on its 2024 merger with brsk, which significantly increased its premises-passed count and accelerated the firm’s nationwide footprint.
Why it’s important
Netomnia’s success underscores a widening divide in the UK altnet sector—where a few well‑funded challengers are beginning to execute large‑scale models, even as many smaller operators struggle or collapse.
The broader altnet landscape has been strained by high capital costs, intense competition with incumbents such as BT’s Openreach and Virgin Media O2, and reduced access to cheap funding. Recent coverage suggests dozens of smaller operators face insolvency or distress, with heavy sector‑wide debt and significant cash burn reported.
In contrast, Netomnia’s growth highlights how scale and investment partnerships can enable aggressive network expansion. But this success also raises questions about sustainability: can revenue growth keep pace with costly deployments and potential consolidation pressures? Analysts continue to warn that net losses and overbuild issues require significant restructuring in the industry.
The two‑tier dynamic—with a handful of well‑capitalized altnets scaling and a long tail of financially stressed competitors—may accelerate market consolidation. Whether this outcome delivers better outcomes for consumers or simply reshapes competitive boundaries will depend on pricing, wholesale access, and regulatory responses as the sector evolves in 2026 and beyond.
