CommunityFibre expands UK reach with purchase of Box Broadband

CommunityFibre, the London-based broadband ISP, is looking to expand outside of the capital and into West Sussex and Surrey by acquiring Box Broadband.

CommunityFibre already provides 3Gbps fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband connections to 300,000 households and 12,000 businesses.

The ISP expects to have covered 400,000 premises in the capital by the end of the year, and near-term build contracts will help boost their numbers by an additional 200,000. By 2023, CommunityFibre aims to have covered 1 million locations in the UK.

Box Broadband has 7000 homes in West Sussex and Surrey in their FTTP network in locations such as Walliswood, Cranleigh, Ellen’s Green, and Ewhurst.

Graham Sargood, CEO of Box Broadband, did hope to have covered 160,000 homes by 2023, but this goal was announced in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic. There have been no updates on the ISP’s progress since.

“We are delighted to receive investment from Community Fibre who has established itself as champions for the many underserved communities in London. With their investment and operational scale, we will be able to quickly ramp up our build and provide high speed and affordable services to many more customers in our target areas,” Sargood said after the acquisition announcement.

Box Broadband will remain an independent entity with Sargood continuing to lead the operation after the acquisition.

CEO of Community Fibre, Graeme Oxby, said: “Box Broadband has already established itself as a provider of fast and reliable trusted services to communities in Surrey and West Sussex that are underserved from a speed perspective. As such, this is an exciting opportunity for us to invest in a company that shares our vision of affordable connectivity for all, and to expand across the South.”

Mark Jackson of ISPreview says that the merger is likely to be the start of a new trend in the industry: “We’ve long expected to see more consolidation among the growing mass of alternative full fibre network providers and this could thus perhaps be seen as one of the opening salvos as more established altnets look to rapidly grow into new spaces through acquisitions.”