Fibre in the channel: Are we on track for 2030?
Fibre in the channel: Are we on track for 2030?
To be candid, the UK is still far behind some of our European and G20 counterparts when it comes to full fibre coverage, but ‘us Brits’ are catching up!
Many thought the Government’s original plan to completely transition to fibre by 2025 was a little ‘hopeful’, but now the manifesto commitment has been revised to 2030, the goal may be further away, but it’s certainly more realistic.
So, where is the channel market? What are our current challenges and opportunities? Keep reading to discover how TalkTalk Wholesale Services can help you get the most from full fibre.
Post-pandemic demand
The demand for home working prompted many businesses to upgrade to futureproof fibre services, and now we seem past the worst times demand may have dropped, but there are still plenty of opportunities out there.
While the urgency to upgrade may be lower, the benefits remain. Businesses need to be prepared for further catastrophes that may prompt staff to work from home again; anything from another pandemic to a fire, flood or power outage.
Homeworking can also improve employee morale and satisfaction, allowing staff to schedule their personal commitments around their work ones, and can actually help attract stronger talent from a broader talent pool.
Though, the 2025 Switch-off is still moving forward as planned, and businesses leveraging PSTN lines will need to upgrade them before lines are deactivated permanently, which represents another massive opportunity for resellers.
Combining the power of Altnets and Openreach
To meet the government’s goals of gigabit capable connectivity throughout the UK by 2030, the channel needs to promote broad cooperation and collaboration across the industry, which is exactly what we’re doing.
Working with CityFibre, we’ve made 1m premises fibre-friendly across 56 cities. Long-term plans for CityFibre are to reach 5m by 2026, and we are working with them to ensure we can meet this with 8m not long afterwards.
Openreach’s Full Fibre network already covers 6.5m premises, with us accessing most of that. Long term plans are working towards 25m going forward. Openreach have built a Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) network that covers 96.83 per cent of the UK – that’s 28.6 million homes and businesses.
Though with more Altnets seemingly entering the market each week, and a growing number of scattered fibre hotspots available around the country, resellers need support. They need visibility across all availability within a given area, to better target their marketing efforts and prevent frustrating prospects when fibre isn’t live at their premises.
How can resellers capitalise?
Now that many of those businesses that needed fibre, changing tact and focusing on areas, rather than specific businesses, where fibre is available, can lead to significant uptake. So, we’re making it as easy as possible for our Partners to identify the best places to focus their efforts.
One of the ways we’re helping (alongside industry-leading sales and marketing support) is by supporting our Partners with data and insight. For example:
Targeted marketing
Our dashboards allows you to search for postcodes and interrogate the local infrastructure, enabling you to find areas that have fibre lines ready for connection.
Reducing churn
Using our expertise, data and insights and cross referencing with your traffic metrics help you identify customers in need of a higher bandwidth fibre connection, and what services are available at their location.
Fibre customers are more likely to be satisfied with their service and stay with the provider, so you can reduce churn and improve CSAT metrics – talk about two birds with one stone!
All told, while the inbound demand for fibre services may have temporarily waned, the very present is a major opportunity for resellers to research the areas that are primed for fibre uptake and reach out to residents and businesses.
Given the benefits of upgrading, as well as the accessible cost of G.Fast and FTTP services, our Partners are perfectly placed to better target their marketing, provide an improved experience for end-users and enjoy happier, longer-lasting customers.
For more information on our network visibility, data and insights or FTTP, please speak to your Account Manager or get in touch with the team.
