Voneus acquires Broadway Partners

The consolidation needed to give the efficiencies of scale in the world of rural full fibre roll-outs has ended up with three news stories merging into one.

• Vonues acquires Broadway Partners
• Macquarie Capital, Israel Infrastructure Fund (IIF) and Tiger Infrastructure Partners merge fibre businesses SWS Broadband and Cadence Networks into Voneus 
• First postcodes in Goodwick, Pembrokeshire spotted as live via Voneus contract with Pembrokshire council

All these changes mean that the combined group has access to some £250 million of capital with the target of serving 350,000 rural properties across the UK. 

The changes mean that as of today SWS Broadband and Cadence are operating under the Voneus brand.

This is a very exciting time for Voneus, and for our new partners, shareholders, and the communities we serve.

We have the backing of our shareholders to accelerate our roll-out plan, which we know will make a positive impact as we all share the same focus to deliver innovative broadband solutions to communities across the UK.

Welcoming SWS Broadband, Cadence Networks and Broadway Partners into Voneus provides us with even more opportunities to support businesses, individuals, and communities to thrive – fostering economic development, education, and communication to help improve the overall quality of life no matter where they are from.

Christopher Traggio, CEO of Voneus Broadband

The changes are particularly positive for Broadway Partners, which has been in limbo for some time. Broadway Partners started off experimenting with TV Whitespace radio broadband, but this was a commercial dead-end and had started to build its own full-fibre network.

Map showing where Voneus full-fibre has been found so far in Pembrokeshire, 25th September 2023

The Voneus roll-out in the area of Fishguard is just the start of a larger 10,500 premises contract which should stretch down to villages like Letterston. The last week has also seen us finding more Vonues footprint in England as part of our quarterly cycle around the hundred or so different FTTP networks we track, though with consolidation, it may be down to 99 networks now.

For employees of SWS Broadband, Cadence Networks, Broadway Partners and Voneus, hopefully managers are talking to them today to ensure they know what is happening. Fingers crossed the ambition is to expand dramatically and therefore, there will be no need for anyone to lose their job.