London focused UK broadband ISP G.Network, which has spent the past few years deploying a gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across parts of the city centre, has today announced a “strategic update” that will see some redundancies as the operator shifts their strategy and moves to “drive further commercialisation” (growing take-up).
In case anybody has forgotten, G.Network only resumed their fibre roll-out in the city during February 2024, which occurred after a long build pause and some job cuts (here); that had been fuelled by rising build costs (a common problem for UK network operators) and a shortage of funding. Not to mention the competition from rivals.
The situation improved again in June 2024 after the operator managed to secure an additional investment of £85m from long term equity investor USS to support their “next phase of growth“ (here), which was on top of last year’s commitment by the same investor for “up to an additional” £150m (here).
G.Network states that “clear progress has been made over the last two years” towards its ambition for creating a better-connected London, with “significant results achieved regarding business performance, customer growth, service, cost effectiveness and productivity.” The operator includes some examples of this below.
G.Network’s Own Highlights:
➤ Achieved significant customer growth over the past two years and delivered market leading customer ARPU averaging c.£50 per month
➤ Business (B2B) penetration has grown to 10% and ARPU is averaging c.£130 per month
➤ A growing in-direct channel with over 170 partners including FluidOne, Cerberus and Spitfire
➤ Consumer penetration of pre-fibred MDUs [large residential buildings / flats] is running at 30%-50% in certain segments after sixteen months
➤ Network investments have delivered industry standard costs and service levels
➤ Operational efficiency has increased by cutting the cost-to-serve by 67%, reducing mean time to provide to eight days and our productivity has increased seven-fold
➤ Improvements in customer service underpin our position as the most trusted alt.net in London (4.7 Trustpilot)
The big news today is that the operator has moved to “refine” their growth strategy to “maximise G.Network’s long-term potential“, which will see an increasing focus on commercialisation (i.e. growing take-up) and the adoption of a new ‘build-to-order’ model that seems to prioritise business customers and larger MDU buildings.
“With the successful completion of our current network expansion, we are moving to a ‘build-to-order’ model focused on high-value B2B customers and high-demand MDUs. We will pilot this approach by extending our network into the City of London, in the future this could open up an additional [50,000] business premises across our current network footprint,” said the operator.
At the same time, the operator appears to be cutting some of their back-office costs by introducing more automation, which they say will enable them to “operate in a more efficient, customer-focused manner.” But naturally, all of these changes and the shift in build strategy will come at the cost of some jobs.
“The shift in how we execute our strategy will affect some of our contractors, management, non-customer facing and back-office roles. In parallel, customer-facing roles are growing to service increasing demand, so the net change will impact around 17% of our employees. G.Network is about to enter consultation with employees to discuss what this means for them individually,” said the statement.
Kevin Murphy, CEO of G.Network, told ISPreview:
“We have made solid progress over the past two years in transforming G.Network into a successful commercial organisation. To ensure that the business continues to thrive, we will evolve how we operate. I am immensely proud of our team for the efforts and achievements to date. It is always difficult taking decisions that impact our people, but I am confident these changes will make our business stronger and support our vision of a better-connected London.”
At this point it’s worth remembering that G.Network originally held an aspiration toward expanding their fibre network to cover 1.3 million premises in London by the end of 2026. But like many other altnets, they’ve since been impacted by an increasingly competitive environment and rising costs. The change in strategy being adopted above is thus similar to the approach that many other operators have been adopting.
Residential customers of G.Network typically pay from £17 per month for a 150Mbps (50Mbps upload) service on a 24-month term with free installation (£22 thereafter), which rises to £30 for their top 900Mbps plan (£35 thereafter). Shorter 12 and 1 month contracts are also available, albeit at extra cost, and a symmetric speed 900Mbps plan exists for £40 per month.