VMO2 co-owner links fibre investment to Netomnia merger approval

VMO2, a UK telecom operator, has warned Ofcom that current regulatory policies could undermine fiber broadband investment. This comes amid broader industry tensions over competition and rollout incentives, highlighting the core tension in telecom policy between fostering competition and incentivizing infrastructure investment.

• Liberty Global chief Mike Fries linked further VMO2 and Nexfibre fibre construction to approval of Nexfibre’s proposed £2bn acquisition of Netomnia.
• The relevant decision is a UK merger-control review by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), not an Ofcom access-regulation consultation.

What happened

Mike Fries, chief executive of Liberty Global, said VMO2 and Nexfibre could stop further fibre building if the proposed Netomnia deal is not approved. Liberty Global co-controls Virgin Media O2 with Telefónica and is an investor in Nexfibre alongside InfraVia.

Telecoms.com reported the comments on 26 March 2026 after Fries spoke at a New Street Research conference. He argued that combining Nexfibre with Netomnia would create a stronger infrastructure competitor to Openreach and pressed for clearance at the first stage of the merger review. Those are the executive’s claims in support of the transaction, not findings by the competition authority or a confirmed cancellation of capital spending.

The proposed transaction is Nexfibre’s £2bn acquisition of Netomnia. Merger approval sits with the CMA. Ofcom’s separate work on telecoms access rules and Openreach provides regulatory context for the fibre market, but Ofcom is not the authority deciding this acquisition.

The report put the combined VMO2 and Nexfibre footprint at about eight million premises, with Netomnia adding roughly three million if the deal closes. It cited about 21 million premises for Openreach and 4.7 million for CityFibre. These are approximate, company-reported rollout figures, not directly comparable measures of active customers or network utilisation.

Nexfibre was targeting completion in the second half of 2026, subject to approval and other closing conditions. Until the CMA publishes a decision, any remedy or detailed timetable, the investment warning should be read as a conditional negotiating position.

Related coverage: Openreach reports growth in full-fibre usage

Why it matters

The statement places a familiar infrastructure-policy trade-off inside a specific merger case. Greater scale could help an alternative network compete with Openreach, but absorbing another independent builder could also reduce the number of infrastructure owners.

Fries’s warning increases pressure around the review by tying approval to future construction. It does not establish that VMO2 or Nexfibre has adopted a binding plan to stop investment, and it should not be presented as an Ofcom decision or dispute.

The next evidence points are the CMA’s review stage and timetable, any proposed remedies, the transaction’s financing and closing, and changes to VMO2 or Nexfibre build guidance. Reported premises passed should be checked against later disclosures rather than treated as a fixed market-share measure.