BT has signed a 1.4 billion pound loan agreement with wholesale fibre builder nexfibre, the companies said, under which nexfibre’s network build will extend full fibre access to a further 2.2 million UK premises, with BT’s consumer and business brands as anchor tenants.
The structure is the UK fibre market in miniature: alt nets build, incumbents anchor, and the financing works only if take up follows the trenches. nexfibre, backed by Liberty Global, Telefonica and InfraVia, is one of the few builders with the balance sheet to keep building through the sector’s consolidation, and a 1.4 billion pound facility with an anchor tenant commitment is the strongest form the model currently takes.
For BT the deal hedges its own build economics, buying wholesale reach where its Openreach programme is slower, while keeping the retail margin that decides the consumer broadband war.