Truespeed and Freedom Fibre merger talks – why it’s a complementary fit.

This brief analysis examines Truespeed and Freedom Fibre’s network footprint, competitive pressures, and the strategic rationale for a potential merger. The data reveals a highly complementary merger opportunity with zero network overlap, offering immediate scale benefits in an intensely competitive market environment.

For reference, we are referring to Truespeed and County Broadband’s combined metrics as the two rural ISPs announced their merger in July 2025.

Operator	Premises Passed	Geographic Focus	Customers	Take up Rate
Truespeed + County Broadband Combined	~183k	South West, East of England, South East	~40k	22%
Freedom Fibre	~243k	North West, West Midlands, Wales, London	~30k	12%

 Source: Point Topic

The proposed merger would create a national Altnet covering around 426k premises spanning 39 local authorities across 7 UK regions, transforming three regional operators into a credible national player.  With no footprint overlap between Truespeed and Freedom Fibre the merger makes sense in terms of cost-effective scaling up for the suppliers.

Looking at direct competition within the combined footprint of Truespeed, County Broadband, and Freedom Fibre, Openreach has deployed FTTP to 58% of the combined Altnet footprint, creating direct FTTP competition. This is a substantial overlap that forces these Altnets to compete on price, service quality, and brand differentiation rather than technology superiority alone.

Despite Openreach's FTTP progress, approximately 50% of the incumbent footprint in these areas still rely on FTTC/ADSL technology providing Truespeed, County Broadband, and Freedom Fibre a pure-fibre advantage in roughly half the market.  Taking this further, 48% of premises have access to Virgin Media O2 DOCSIS 3.1 gigabit capable services, with only <1% presence of Virgin RFoG in these areas.

The "big three" Openreach operators (BT, TalkTalk, Sky) have nearly identical competing premises ( ~32% footprint), confirming they operate on Openreach infrastructure and represent the primary competitive threat. CityFibre and Gigaclear are also present and combined cover around ~15% of premises. 

Looking at the geographic diversification post-merger, the merged entity would obtain regional balance, with no single region dominating.  The South West, North West, and West Midlands, each would make up around 30% of the total footprint, with the East of England coming in at 18%, essentially providing exceptional risk diversification.

Looking more closely at the strategic value proposition, we can see why this merger creates value.

Strengths

• Strong FTTP positioning: Large proportion of competition from incumbent and major retail ISPs are still using FTTC, ADSL, DOCSIS 3.1 technology, marking prime FTTP uptake opportunities; 35% (157k premises) of the combined footprint where no other retail FTTP operators are present.

• Complementary Geographic scale: Minimal network overlap, pure additive growth and regional diversification covering 7 regions across 39 local authorities reduces concentration risk.

• Higher ARPU Opportunity: New network would cover 25K business premises, providing higher ARPU potential.

  
  

Other key positive outcomes in terms of growth synergies would see the new entity with an estimated £213m network value, resulting in stronger supplier negotiations. Greater operational efficiency through unified NOC, billing, and customer service platforms.  Greater brand leveraging would be created through regional brands with a national operational backbone.

The larger national player would mean that scale could make the merged entity attractive to CityFibre, Vodafone, or other large providers in the future.  Furthermore, a new combined 1.27% market share could result in institutional lending for expansion, which has been incredibly challenging over the past two years.

However, the new entity would face challenges, such as 30% of its footprint being covered by incumbent operators with established bases.  The integration complexity of three different tech stacks, cultures, and operating models merging would create challenges, albeit short-term.   Another key point of consideration would be the expensive rural FTTP build costs requiring a lot of capital for expansion (i.e. between £500 - £800 per premises).  This last challenge may be moot in terms of the merger, as the combined networks would see a 132% increase in their footprint, meaning further deployments could be slowed for some time as the focus shifted to customer acquisition.

The potential TrueSpeed, County Broadband and Freedom Fibre merger represents a transformational consolidation that would create the UK's 9th largest FTTP operator with genuine national reach.

With 35% (157k premises) of the combined footprint operating in FTTP monopoly markets, 426k premises across 7 regions, and 1.27% UK market share, this combined entity achieves the scale, diversification, and competitive positioning needed to survive and thrive in the consolidating UK Altnet market.

The strategic logic is compelling, risks are manageable, and timing is optimal before larger competitors consolidate the space. 

Watch our quick video to see exactly how we pulled together key data using: UPC Query Agent | UK Broadband Geography | Network Valuation Tool