The UK connectivity market is going through its biggest shift in decades. Fibre is being rolled out at speed by the incumbent, Openreach, and by a wave of new alternative networks (AltNets). For service providers, this creates huge opportunity but also complexity. How do you deliver services across such a fragmented landscape without reinventing the wheel each time?
Two distinct models have emerged to solve this challenge: integration platforms and aggregation networks. At first glance, they may look similar. Both aim to reduce friction, accelerate adoption and unlock scale. But in practice, they operate in very different ways, with different implications for networks, providers and customers.
The Integration Model: Scale Through Standardisation
Integration platforms, such as Fibre Café, act as the technical and operational “glue” between networks and service providers. Instead of building and maintaining dozens of bespoke integrations, providers connect once to a standardised set of APIs and immediately gain access to multiple suppliers.
The platform doesn’t aggregate or resell services. Its role is to harmonise availability checks, order journeys, appointments and in-life service management processes — areas where every network has its own approach. By translating them into a single, consistent framework, integration platforms reduce IT/development team overhead, operational risk and time to market.
The result is flexibility: service providers retain full control over their commercial agreements, while wholesale network providers including altnets and the incumbent can expose their services to a wider base of buyers without additional development.
At its core, integration is about simplicity without compromise. Fibre Café enables providers to connect once, connect to many — a single integration that opens up access to a growing ecosystem of networks while leaving full commercial control in the hands of providers. Fibre Café isn’t a reseller or competitor; it’s a neutral enabler that gives providers confidence to scale while delivering faster launches, more choice and better outcomes for customers.
The Aggregation Model: Scale Through Consolidation
Aggregation networks take a different approach. They bundle multiple networks under one commercial and operational umbrella. Service providers sign a single wholesale agreement with the aggregator, who in turn manages the relationships, commercial terms and operational processes.
The most established example is PXC, which brought together a broad footprint of networks including CityFibre, Community Fibre, Freedom Fibre, Trooli, Netomnia and MS3, alongside its own extensive exchange infrastructure. PXC demonstrated the appeal of a unified wholesale framework, offering providers access to millions of premises through one contract and one interface.
Other aggregation models have followed similar principles. Zen’s Fibre Hub combines CityFibre, Trooli and Freedom Fibre into one proposition, while AllPoints Fibre’s Aquila aggregates Openreach, BT Wholesale, CityFibre and its own consolidated altnets.
These models offer convenience: partners can reach millions of premises through a single set of terms and systems. The trade-off is flexibility. Providers are limited to the networks and commercial terms the aggregator defines, with the aggregator effectively acting as an intermediary.
Two Philosophies, Two Outcomes
The distinction is more than technical. It reflects two strategic philosophies:
Integration platforms empower choice and flexibility. Providers retain control of their commercial strategy while benefiting from standardised processes. Crucially, integration doesn’t exclude aggregation — it enables it. Providers can access multiple networks and aggregators through a single integration, combining the flexibility of direct connections with the reach of aggregated models. For example, PXC, one of the UK’s original aggregators, is accessible via the Fibre Café platform, allowing providers such as Redcentric to extend their coverage through both direct and aggregated routes.
Aggregation networks, meanwhile, bundle multiple suppliers under one commercial and operational framework. This reduces the number of contracts and integrations a provider needs to manage, but it also means giving up flexibility and independence.
Both approaches add value. The question is whether a provider values control and flexibility more, or the convenience of a single commercial framework.
Market Implications
The implications for the market are significant.
Integration supports inclusivity. By standardising technical processes, it removes barriers that increase friction and limit service providers ability to easily add new suppliers. enables new entrants to join the market easily, allows incumbents to interoperate more easily with new entrants, and gives providers the flexibility to craft differentiated supply chains.
Aggregation supports consolidation of suppliers in a single commercial relationship. It delivers immediate scale, particularly appealing to partners in the channel, but also concentrates influence in the hands of a few large networks.
As the market matures, both models will continue to coexist. In practice, aggregators already rely on integration platforms behind the scenes. While the boundaries between the two models can sometimes appear blurred, their strategic philosophies remain distinct.
Looking Ahead
The UK’s fibre rollout has created unprecedented choice, but without mechanisms to reduce friction, that choice risks becoming unmanageable. Integration and aggregation platforms are the infrastructure that make competition work.
Both models will coexist. Aggregators will continue to provide a fast route to scale, particularly for partners that value simplicity above all else. But integration platforms also enable that same scale, allowing providers to concentrate multiple routes to market, including aggregators, through a single connection. The trade-offs are clear: aggregation delivers reach through dependency, while integration delivers it through control.
Integration, by contrast, sustains growth. It lowers barriers for altnets, supports incumbents, and allows providers to retain control over their commercial strategy. When delivered through an open, standards-based platform, integration turns fragmentation into a functioning ecosystem — open, neutral and future-ready.
For us, the mission is clear: to build and champion that integration layer, standardising complexity, enabling choice and helping create a healthier, more competitive UK connectivity market that delivers faster adoption, greater choice and better outcomes for customers.