The U.K. broadband market is competitive and fragmented
Dozens of alternative network providers are building infrastructure while incumbents continue to expand their footprints
AllPoints Fibre Networks is using automation, standardized APIs and modern network architecture to unify multiple fiber infrastructures
The U.K. broadband market has become one of the most competitive and fragmented fiber environments in the world, with dozens of alternative network providers racing to build infrastructure while incumbents continue expanding their own footprints. But amid the complexity, AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN) is pursuing a different strategy: aggregation.
Formed from the merger of four U.K. altnets and virtual ISP Cuckoo under the ownership of Fern Trading — itself controlled by Octopus Investments, part of Octopus Energy Group — APFN has transformed itself into a wholesale-only broadband platform serving more than 23 million premises across the U.K.
I talked to APFN Managing Director Ronan Kelly about how the company is using automation, standardized APIs and modern network architecture to unify multiple fiber infrastructures into a single wholesale platform.
“We don’t do that just with our own network,” Kelly said. “AllPoints Fibre Networks itself was created out of the combination of four altnets here in the U.K.”
The company connected networks from Openreach, CityFibre, BT Wholesale and Sky, giving APFN access to more than 23 million premises.
The structure also reflects a broader trend reshaping digital infrastructure globally: the convergence of telecom and energy.
“There does seem to be a coming together of energy and telecom, a sort of convergence of those networks at some point,” I noted during the interview.
Kelly agreed the trend is becoming increasingly visible.
“We see entities like Utility Warehouse that serve as a virtual aggregator of different services, some of which are broadband, some of which are energy,” he said.
Wholesale economics demand automation
While APFN’s aggregation strategy gives service providers access to multiple fiber footprints through a single integration, Kelly acknowledged the economics can be difficult.
“Making money from it is always difficult because when you're a wholesale aggregator, you're caught between powerful buyers and powerful suppliers,” he said. “So trying to make a margin in that environment is always challenging.”
The answer, according to Kelly, is relentless automation.
“Everything that you do, you've got to look at through the lens of 100% automation, super slick and efficient processes in place so that you're not burning through cash unnecessarily," he said.
Kelly said one of the biggest challenges was cultural rather than technical.
“It’s not just a case of putting a new box on the PowerPoint slide to say we do wholesale as well as we do retail,” he said. “You really have to structure the business to get it into a wholesale mindset.”
‘Rip it up and start again’
One advantage APFN had during its transition was the opportunity to rebuild its operational stack from scratch.
“One of the gifts that our investor afforded to us was the ability to take all of the IT stacks that had been created by the five different companies that were brought together and completely rip it up and start again,” Kelly said.
Rather than relying on legacy integrations, APFN opted for commercially supported platforms using TM Forum APIs and standardized interfaces.
“The approach that we took was to move away from a lot of the homegrown spaghetti that many of the businesses had built across the U.K. today and instead focus on vendor supplied, vendor supported and vendor secured solutions,” Kelly said.
The vendor ecosystem includes ServiceNow, Salesforce and Sona Lake, while APFN’s network architecture is heavily built around Juniper Networks infrastructure.
“We’re very much a Juniper house,” Kelly said. “We’ve got Juniper PTXs and ACXs in the core and the edge of our networks.” [Ed.note: Juniper is now part of HPE.]
A ‘10-gig free zone’
Kelly said APFN deliberately built its infrastructure around very high-capacity interconnects.
“One of the things that we're very proud of is we're a 10-gig free zone,” he said. “So, there's nothing in our network that's below 100 gig data rates.”
Perhaps the most important aspect of APFN’s architecture is its abstraction layer.
“The beauty with the approach that we take with our Aquila platform is those retail providers only have to integrate into us once with a common TM Forum based API,” Kelly said. “And then as we add new networks onto that into the future, they don't need to change a single thing on their side at all.”
In Kelly’s words, the result is an “integrate once and forget” operational model designed to simplify one of the UK telecom industry’s increasingly complicated fiber ecosystems.
Leadership transition underway
Since this interview was conducted, APFN has announced a major leadership transition. The company appointed Mark Walker as CEO effective June 1, following a handover period with Ronan Kelly, who led the business through the launch and early growth of the Aquila platform.
Walker previously held senior roles at Virtual1, TalkTalk Business and PXC, and joined Fern in 2025 supporting both APFN and Vorboss.
“The APFN platform is impressive, delivering a fiber-first, legacy-free choice to partners across multiple networks,” Walker said. “Aquila delivers stability and optionality through one single API interface.”
Kelly is stepping down at the end of May to pursue a new opportunity.
“We have made significant progress as a business, strengthened our position in the wholesale market, developed a strong and growing pipeline of partners and continued to deliver new capabilities at an unmatched pace,” he said.
Fierce Network has reached out to both Walker and Kelly to learn more about APFN’s next phase — and what Kelly plans to do next. Based on his role in building Aquila and reshaping APFN into a modern wholesale platform operator, he is clearly one to watch.