It seems that every conversation about public service reform involves technology. Artificial intelligence to help GPs manage caseloads. Platforms to run council services online rather than in person. Tools to cut bureaucracy so that teachers can teach and social workers can do social work. Digital ID to verify who you are.
These technologies are real and their potential is genuine. But there is a more basic question that rarely gets asked: is our network infrastructure fit for the task?
The entire case for technology and public service reform rests on an assumption that goes largely unexamined: that Britain has the right digital infrastructure to support it today, and in the future.
This is why the next phase of the UK’s full fibre market matters so much – and why policymakers need to pay far closer attention to the health of the market delivering it.
Full fibre rollout has been transformative, but the next phase is uncertain
The full fibre progress made in recent years has been genuinely remarkable. Coverage has risen from 17 per cent to 78 per cent between 2020 and 2025, driven by £21.4bn of private investment and the emergence of alternative network providers (‘altnets’).
Three-quarters of premises now have at least one alternative provider, and a quarter have two. For a country that was, not long ago, warning about broadband deserts, that is a real achievement.
But according to Assembly’s recent report on the full fibre market, cash flow is negative for all but one altnet. Amid increasing concerns about the sustainability of many operators, collapse of the market could have significant implications for consumers, network competition, public services, and public money.
Unlike in utilities such as energy, there is no supplier of last resort in broadband. If operators fail, consumers face real disruption. And with taxpayer-backed initiatives like Project Gigabit and lending from the National Wealth Fund, the public finances are exposed too. The collapse of Gigaclear cost taxpayers £100m. It will not be the last casualty unless the market structure evolves.
Consolidation must strengthen competition
The full fibre market needs to consolidate. Ofcom has said as much, and the numbers bear it out. With too many sub-scale operators competing for insufficient customer bases, the investment required for the next wave of services and innovation simply will not materialise. A market built on fragility will not, in the long term, serve the public interest – nor public services.
What matters now is how that consolidation happens in the coming months and years – and whether the regulatory environment continues to support sustainable competition. Ofcom is currently considering new Openreach commercial offers, including conditional and geographically targeted pricing arrangements, and has rightly asked whether such offers could raise competition concerns.
If BT Openreach’s monopolistic position were to continue to go effectively unchallenged, there is a real risk that the incentives to invest at pace, innovate, and respond to changing consumer and public sector needs would weaken over time.
Strong, active competition is central to delivering the government’s objectives for the sector. Without it, future upgrades, service quality improvements, and the diversity of wholesale and retail offers available to consumers and public services could be constrained. In the long term, that would risk undermining both value for money and the UK’s ambition to build genuinely world-class digital infrastructure.
nexfibre’s £3.5bn investment can help secure the next phase
The planned acquisition of Netomnia by nexfibre is set to create a combined footprint of around eight million premises by the end of 2027 and unlock £3.5bn of international investment into the UK. Real infrastructure investment, right across the country, with real consequences for the public services that communities rely on, across almost 300 constituencies the length and breadth of the UK, from Bury North to Leeds West, Crawley to Kilmarnock.
Included in our plans is the upgrading of 2.1 million premises from cable to full fibre that schools, GP surgeries, council offices, libraries, businesses and households will rely on every day. And with our partnership with UK Youth, we are also offering full fibre for free, to over a thousand youth centres across the UK to tackle digital poverty.
Public service reform relies on strong digital foundations
When we discuss how technology and innovation can help public services deliver for communities – we need to also ask whether Britain has the digital infrastructure foundation that the services of today and the innovations of tomorrow can rely on? To borrow a phrase from the Local Government Association’s Owen Pritchard, who spoke alongside me at the New Statesman Politics Live Conference this week, “you can’t drive F1 cars on dirt tracks”.
The government is right to focus on reforming public services. But reform cannot be delivered on fragile foundations. AI, automation and digital platforms will only improve people’s lives if the infrastructure beneath them is resilient, competitive and capable of reaching communities up and down the country.
We have made fantastic progress in recent years. But as we look ahead, it is vital that policymakers understand and engage with the very real challenges the full fibre market faces.
Britain has shown it can build. The question now is whether it can create a market strong enough to sustain what comes next. If we are serious about public service reform, we must be serious about the digital infrastructure that makes it possible. This is Britain’s broadband moment – and it’s vital we get it right.
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