21581 - SCTE Broadband August2022 COMPLETE v1

34 Vol. 44 No. 3 - September 2022 Issue from the industry 100% commitment on full-fibre as a technology, no legacy infrastructure or products and a wholesale model, we can stay focused on what matters and adapt quickly to change. A great example of this was the speed with which we responded to Covid, set up our workforce to work remotely and at the same time, increased our rate of build, taking full advantage of the empty streets to accelerate our rollout. We also managed to nearly double our workforce over the period, onboarding nearly 900 new staff into roles across our organisation. It’s great to hear how companies responded to the pandemic – how they turned a crisis into an opportunity – we saw that a lot in the early days. Well done. What about the landscape now? Often in business, as things are peaking, there is a period of investment, intense competition followed by consolidation amongst companies. Do you see a period of consolidation for the altnets in time? How do you see the landscape in 5- or 10-years’ time? Doubtlessly there will be consolidation in the market over time, but what the past few years have taught us is that it is very hard to predict anything with any degree of certainty. What we do firmly believe is that the UK needs a third national network if we are to ensure a healthy competitive market for the long term. The duopoly model failed and resulted in the UK lagging behind much of the rest of Europe. Competition has turned this around and has unleashed vast sums of private investment to level up the UK’s connectivity. If we continue to protect and nurture that competition, we will unleash a spectacular digital dividend for the nation. For more information, visit www.cityfibre.com