Communications

Report by New Street Research

Further signs of an over-heated sub-sector - Axione (the French fibre JV between Bouygues and Mirova) has announced plans to build FTTP to 4m premises in the UK in sub-urban and rural areas. New Street believes the company is entering an increasingly crowded UK FTTP market (estimates there is already c.15% overlap among the altnets today); argues the economics looks very challenging and consolidation among the players is long overdue if they are ever going to improve their returns and stop competing against each other, as well as Virgin and BT.