Voneus has bought Airband out of administration

Airband has gone into administration and been sold. Three days after its backer walked away and handed control to its lenders, the rural network has changed hands. Voneus has confirmed to ISPreview that it has completed the purchase of the assets and customers of Airband Community Internet Limited out of administration. Terms were not disclosed.

Voneus is an altnet of much the same shape as the one it has just bought. It builds full fibre and fixed wireless across remote parts of England and Wales, and it is backed by Macquarie, Tiger Infrastructure Partners and the Israel Infrastructure Fund, which between them funded the deal. Voneus says the enlarged business covers 170,000 premises ready for service and serves around 60,000 customers.

That 170,000 is worth a second look. Airband used to describe its own network as reaching more than 440,000 premises in over 200 communities across seven counties, so the combined figure Voneus has published counts something narrower than the number Airband quoted. Neither company has explained where the difference sits. Until one of them does, it is not clear which Airband areas carry across into the enlarged business and which do not.

If you are one of the roughly 30,000 households Airband served, nothing announced today changes your connection. The network is still running. No changes to packages, prices or bills have been announced, and Voneus has not said whether the Airband name survives or how quickly the two customer bases are brought together, beyond a line about working closely with customers through the integration.

The part worth your attention is the paperwork, not the service. When Voneus writes to you, read it properly: what you pay, how long you are tied in, and what the price-rise wording now says. Those are the terms that tend to move when a customer base transfers, and they are the ones nobody has published yet. Keep the letter.

For everyone else, this is the year’s pattern rather than a surprise. Aberdeen Group had put more than £200m into Airband and is writing that off. We watched the same pressure reach toob earlier this month. A smaller network folding into a bigger one is the ordinary ending now rather than the alarming one, and a network changing owner is not a network switching off. It does mean the company you signed with is not the company you end up with. Our guide on whether altnets are safe to switch to covers what actually happens to your line when a small network changes hands, and the availability checker is the only thing that knows what else reaches your street.