UK Altnets: Arising from the ashes… to fail again?

G.Network and Gigaclear have emerged from debt distress to (seemingly) carry on as before, with sales processes having failed, and a reset that may end with a not-dissimilar outcome.

The altnet consolidation game appears to be in stalemate as VMO2/nexfibre seeks approval for its Netomnia acquisition, but this will result in continued cash burn, with which investors may lose patience.

Altnet pricing is broadly staying low, as they balance the need to maintain subscriber momentum and conserve cash, resulting in continuing pricing pressure on the ISP incumbents.

Q1 saw Netflix continue to display revenue growth, up 16% YoY (to $12.3 billion), with UCAN (+14%), EMEA (+17%), LATAM (+19%) and APAC (+20%) all contributing strongly.

Netflix has thrived in a decade where TV content has been increasingly siloed. With TV appearing to be moving towards more liquid viewing environments, increased direct competition will disadvantage primary TV destinations.

HBO Max’s launch has so far proceeded as expected, although its decision to not commission locally raised eyebrows: this is in contrast to Netflix, whose UK originals continue to garner the most viewing globally.

UK mobile coverage/quality significantly lags that of its European peers; this really matters, for both consumers and the wider economy, and for both existing services and a range of potential new ones.

Improving coverage will likely require a variety of techniques, from antennas in space to antennas inside shopping centres, and fully utilising the entire range of available spectrum, from sub-1GHz to mmWave.

Network quality competition sparked by the VodafoneThree merger and network rebuild could drive improvements from all three operators, but significant government help is required to ensure this.