Welcome

Unlike the Great British Summer, which has come to an abrupt halt, at Strategic Imperatives we’ve carried on our hot streak. We have formed some fantastic new partnerships, innovated our product offerings, and prepared for cornerstone events including Connected Britain this week.

We are pleased to share our Monthly Imperatives September Newsletter with you – happy reading!

Wail Sabbagh
Managing Director

Out and About This Week

Connected Britain promises to be one of the most exciting events of the year for our industry. Having attended each conference since the event began in 2015, we have seen Connected Britain grow into a leading forum of industry opinion, collaboration, and networking.

This year, we are ramping up our involvement.

As Gold Sponsors, we are delighted to be hosting an engaging roundtable session, which will see our Director of Strategy Donal Hanrahan joined on stage by key partners Netomnia & Brsk CEO Jeremy Chelot, and Neil Wilson, Chief Product & Marketing Officer at Platform X. Within this session, we’ll explore the future of wholesale in the UK fibre market and how to empower a resilient and scalable ecosystem – don’t miss it!

It will also now be easier than ever to find us among the hustle and bustle, as Strategic Imperatives will have its own booth. Come and see us at stand 133 for a chat over coffee!

New product announcement

We’re always looking to innovate and improve the service we provide to our ISP customers. We recognise the critical importance of effective billing to acquire, retain and monetise customers, and our endeavour to make this as efficient and secure as possible has never wavered.

That is why we’re proud to announce product updates for our billing platform with Elevate for ISPs, which will now make it even easier for our customers to access secure, instant, and seamless monetisation solutions.

Whether you’re a wholesale or retail ISP, or both, it’s time to embrace a proactive approach to billing and subscriptions. With Elevate for ISPs, our customers can easily manage diverse services, launch innovative products and promotions, and adapt quickly to market changes.

With the latest in payment and direct debit technology, made possible with trusted partners such as GoCardless, Elevate for ISPs offers:

• Elevate insight: our new analytics platform provides streamlined customer and revenue insights to analyse profitability by product, geography and sales promotion
• Manage complex pricing structures: roll out service tiers, bundles, and promotional discounts without risk of billing errors
• Simplify contract management: gain a clear view of ‘in contract’ and ‘out of contract’ customers, allowing for targeted retention activity

In August we were delighted to welcome Netomnia to The Fibre Café.

Following its recent merger with Brsk, Netomnia has become the UK’s fourth-largest full-fibre network, bringing an additional 1.6 million premises to The Fibre Café. Netomnia will leverage our platform to seamlessly onboard a wider range of ISPs to its rapidly expanding network, enhancing its position as the only scaled, capital-efficient wholesale and consolidation platform in the market.

For Strategic Imperatives, these partnerships are key to our continued success and ambitious growth plans. More than that, they are crucial to our contribution towards a truly connected Britain; an ambition shared by the entire industry.

Read all about our latest partnership, with insights from our MD Wail Sabbagh and Jeremy Chelot, CEO at Netomnia & Brsk, in Capacity’s coverage at the link below.

Connecting Gigabit Britain

Project Gigabit is one of the most important objectives for our sector, as we collectively strive for full-fibre connectivity throughout the UK.

It’s an objective intimately understood by Comms Business, one of the most trusted news publications within telecommunications, technology and beyond.

This year, Strategic Imperatives had the pleasure of sponsoring the Connecting Gigabit Britain supplement, an annual instalment catching up on the process and progression of nationwide connectivity.

The supplement is out this week and we are pleased to share below our MD Wail Sabbagh’s sponsor address for your reading.

Connectivity is the cornerstone of pursuing a Gigabit Britain.

It’s incredible to see the progress an entire industry, across a whole nation, can make when united by a shared ambition. When Project Gigabit was first unveiled in 2018, the industry set out to take significant steps toward a full-coverage, ultra-fast-fibre future, with a consensus that progress would be seen annually. However, the data reveals remarkable growth is happening month-by-month.

Ofcom’s latest Connected Nations update reveals strides made between September 2023 and January 2024. In this short period, gigabit-capable broadband coverage has surged to 24.0 million residences, reaching 80% of all UK homes—an increase of 800,000 homes.

This is just the beginning, we must use the current momentum to increase partnerships, collaboration, innovation, and above all, connectivity.

These pillars have been fundamental to our success at Strategic Imperatives over the past 15 years. Our platform, The Fibre Café, provides a pivotal gateway to a connected Britain, servicing 90% of the UK fibre footprint and seamlessly connecting disparate network providers, AltNets, and ISPs via a single unified interface. The Fibre Café transforms how AltNets and ISPs do business with innovative technologies, unparalleled domain expertise, and extensive industry collaboration.

Through The Fibre Café, Strategic Imperatives is a driving force in ensuring increased coverage and connectivity, making it far easier for AltNets and ISPs to scale and expand, empowering a vibrant, agile wholesale market.

Our commitment to innovation extends beyond fostering a dynamic connectivity landscape. With Elevate, our transformative monetisation platform, we’re driving the next wave of growth for modern telcos, ISPs, and network providers. Elevate streamlines billing, removes friction, and unlocks new revenue streams, making billing a strategic advantage.

Through our expertise and technological innovation, and through collaboration with our partners and customers, Strategic Imperatives is proud to make a significant contribution towards ensuring the pursuit of Gigabit Britain is in safe hands.

Wail Sabbagh
Managing Director

In the news!

Sitting at the heart of the fibre community, we love seeing headlines highlighting the brilliant developments across our sector, whether it’s from companies we’ve worked with for decades, or others we admire.

We’ve kept our ear to the ground throughout August, seeing the tremendous progress of new partnerships, positive growth stories, and the celebration of the talented individuals and businesses within our sector.

Here are some of the stories that grabbed our attention:

Community Fibre hits 300k connections – Comms Business

Sky to offer broadband services over CityFibre full-fibre network – Computer Weekly

GoFibre Grows UK FTTP Broadband Coverage to 115,000 Premises – ISPreview UK

UK ‘altnets’ raise fresh funding as finance deals heat up – Financial Times

62,000 Premises in Scotland Benefit from R100 Fibre Broadband Build – ISPreview UK