Distressed Diaries — Altnets dial down expansion in wake of distress

Alternative internet providers swarmed the market during Covid-19 when internet usage became paramount to the shift of everyone suddenly having to work from home during lockdowns.

In the UK we have over 100 altnet providers serving 16.4 million homes, according to a 2025 report by the Independent Networks Co-operative Association. This is up from 1.2 million homes in 2019.

Investors were quick to support this expansion with cheap funding. Since 2020, the sector has received around £17.4bn of funding, according to advisory firm BDO.

However, the ‘build and they will come’ model proved far too optimistic as subscriber growth failed to keep pace. Rising interest rates and burdening costs of building the infrastructure also weighed on these broadband providers.

We started to see the first signs of distress at the start of the year, with G.Network filing for administration, shortly after its acquisition by distressed debt investor FitzWalter, and creditors moved to take control of Gigaclear.

On this episode we sit down with Ben Davies and Stuart Keeping, senior managing directors from financial advisory firm Teneo to delve into the rise and fall of this overcrowded market and providers’ response to the challenges.