The race to win in the UK’s full-fibre market is heating up. At the end of 2024, Ofcom reported that full-fibre is available to 20.7 million homes—representing 69% of the UK’s total 30.1 million households. Between May 2023 and July 2024, take-up of full-fibre rose from 28% to 35%, indicating a steady increase in customer demand. Getting full-fibre connection into every home and business in the UK is a national priority. The UK Government has ambitious gigabit broadband coverage targets, aiming to achieve 85% coverage in 2025 with the goal of nationwide availability by 2030. To meet the deadline, the government is allocating significant resources to deliver broadband to hard-to-reach communities through its Project Gigabit initiative.
Alternative network providers, or altnets, face stiff competition from national providers vying to capture customers as the majority of the UK gains access to full-fibre connection. At the outset of 2025, BT Group’s Openreach reported that its ultrafast full-fibre infrastructure had passed 17 million premises, accounting for half of all homes and businesses in the UK. The company is on track to cover 25 million premises by 2026. Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) reported similar coverage in Q3 of 2024, with 17.8 million total serviceable homes across the nation. Meanwhile, the top 21 altnets share coverage over just 10.3 million premises, with CityFibre infrastructure accounting for 35% of the premises passed by the UK’s top 10 altnets.
With wide full-fibre availability and increased consumer awareness, altnets need to prepare to pivot their operations away from network expansion and provide exceptional last-mile connection services to subscribers. This presents challenges as altnets work to hire on additional fibre engineers and increase their inventory of assets and customer premises equipment (CPE). Altnets are also tasked with maintaining consistent quality and customer service across more locations, putting pressure on both field engineering and quality compliance teams.
To get ahead, altnets need to increase their operational capabilities without compromising on the quality of their connection services. Mistakes made in initial last-mile installations can mean losing subscribers and, in turn, ISP partnerships to the nation’s major players. In this article, we’ll discuss how altnets can use AI-powered computer vision solutions to enhance quality control, manage an expanding asset inventory, and ensure engineers get last-mile connections done right the first time.
Turning Last-Mile Connection Quality Control into a Competitive Advantage
Last-mile connection is the critical final stage in full-fibre deployment. Offering comprehensive and trusted last-mile connection drives take up and allows altnets and their ISP partners to establish long-term relationships with subscribers. Altnets need to ensure that their fibre engineers are empowered to provide exceptional customer service and seamlessly navigate installation so that FTTP investments can start generating revenue as quickly as possible. Ensuring that installation is done correctly on the first visit not only eliminates friction for customers, it also saves on costly and time-consuming revisits and remediation.
Protect Partnerships with ISPs
As full-fibre coverage expands, altnets can no longer rely on network expansion to beat out the competition. They need to turn their attention to attracting partnerships with growing ISPs who will run their services through new FTTP installations. To maintain strong relationships with ISPs, altnets must ensure that the installation services they’re providing on behalf of, or in collaboration with, ISPs reflect well on both parties. Installation errors that cause service interruptions fall on the ISP’s shoulders, harming their brand image and jeopardising customer relationships. Quality assurance is a non-negotiable for altnets that want to establish themselves as trusted partners to the UK’s leading ISPs.
Exceed Subscribers’ Expectations
Subscribers want to make the switch to full-fibre to take advantage of speed and convenience. The installation and maintenance experience needs to match their expectations of the services they’re paying for. FTTP installation is one of the first in-person touchpoints new customers will have with their provider—allowing fibre engineers into their homes and businesses. Altnets need to give engineers the tools to confidently install full-fibre in a wide range of unique locations and scenarios in a timely manner.
Experiencing issues like poorly installed CPE, broadband service interruptions, and multiple engineer revisits leads to subscriber churn. Altnets that can deliver on efficient, competent, and friendly installation services are more likely to win and keep subscribers.
Keep Operating Costs Low
Offering full-fibre installation can increase operating costs in the short term as altnets invest in CPE inventory, hire more field engineers, and ensure that they have enough senior leaders and quality compliance team members to oversee deployment. Successful installations enable altnets to recoup the expense, but quality issues at deployment can turn full-fibre connection into cost centres rather than revenue streams.
Altnets need to focus on maximising engineer efficiency and consider technology solutions that make it easier to do work with fewer team members with varying skill levels. Improving quality at installation reduces time spent reviewing documentation for defects and errors, which means altnets can avoid scaling up their quality compliance departments. Finally, quality FTTP connection services lead to a lower cost of maintenance in the long run. When CPE is set up correctly, altnets save on revisits and replacing damaged or faulty hardware.
Leveraging AI-Powered Computer Vision Solutions to Complete Full-Fibre Connection at Pace
Being proactive about quality control and compliance as you’re rolling out full-fibre connection to subscribers will solidify customer relationships and reduce costs, helping you overtake competition and increase bottom-line growth. Altnets can use a computer vision solution like Deepomatic to automate quality assurance processes in the back office and provide insights to engineers in the field, in real time, so that they can install full-fibre connections correctly, the first time.
How Computer Vision Fits into Altnets’ Full-Fibre Connection Process
Computer vision solutions give engineers in the field a second set of eyes on their work, no matter where they are. With a solution like Deepomatic, fibre engineers installing last-mile connections can get real-time feedback on their work using the camera on their smart device. Deepomatic is completely customised to your business’ requirements and trained to recognize your assets and the installation standards your team needs to uphold. Engineers can simply take photos as they work on fibre assets and install CPE in subscribers’ homes and businesses. Deepomatic then analyses the photos in the moment and provides immediate insights into correctness and compliance, empowering engineers to make adjustments and fix problems during their first visit. This means engineers can work faster and guarantee an exceptional result for the subscriber and the ISP.
UK leader CityFibre is already using Deepomatic for quality control in the field, completely eliminating site revisits and saving 55 minutes of verification time per operation.
Streamlining Back-Office Quality Control and Maintaining Compliance
Deepomatic also provides automated quality control and compliance work typically conducted by back-office staff. Processing and analysing hundreds of photos is already extremely time consuming. As you begin full-fibre installation, the number of assets and locations to photograph will increase exponentially. Small teams won’t be able to handle the growing volume of images that need to be analysed. Deepomatic screens for the reliability of photos taken in the field and automates validation. It automatically flags images that contain errors, eliminating the need for manual analysis so teams can focus on identifying and fixing serious issues. You can also streamline your subcontractor payment process by using Deepomatic to validate work done before issuing payments.
With Deepomatic, altnets can also better maintain compliance with Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) regulations as they continue to expand their networks using Openreach infrastructure. Photos taken with Deepomatic are analysed in the moment to let build partners and engineers know whether they meet PIA standards. This ensures that team members out in the field get the right information, eliminating the need to return to the site for more photos.
Front-running UK altnet Connect Fibre uses Deepomatic to maintain PIA compliance and eliminate costs and penalties associated with insufficient documentation. Using Deepomatic has also enabled Connect Fibre to automate previously lengthy quality control and compliance processes so it can meet tight deployment deadlines and increase revenue.
Tracking a Growing Asset Inventory with Computer Vision
Expanding full-fibre installation to more customers requires more hardware. Altnets need reliable solutions that help them ensure that the asset inventory recorded in their information systems (IS) reflects real-world assets deployed at FTTP connection points. Tracking inventory and monitoring the condition of assets out in the field enables you to better manage the flow of cash and asset purchases, reduce costs associated with replacements and repairs, and ensure that fibre engineers are always equipped with the hardware they need to complete the job correctly.
Deepomatic can analyse photos of patch panels in fibre cabinets before and after connection tasks and automatically detect occupied and empty ports, updating the IS in real time. This eliminates human error and ensures that you always know your assets’ status. Having a single source of truth that your engineers can refer to ensures that they are prepared with the right inventory when they need to perform installs or maintenance.
Complete Full-Fibre Connections Faster with Deepomatic
Altnets in the UK need to act quickly to catch up with the nation’s big network providers and grow their business in this high-pressure market. With Deepomatic, altnets can get more out of their field engineers by giving them the tools to complete full-fibre connections with greater accuracy and compliance. With more efficient installations, altnets can reduce time-to-revenue and increase momentum. Altnets can use Deepomatic to ensure that every deployment is done right the first time, cutting the cost of revisits and maintenance to protect the value of the investment as time goes on. Altnets that put quality control and compliance at the fore with Deepomatic earn trust from ISPs and subscribers, establishing themselves as the go-to providers as the UK embraces a new era of connectivity.
