The Consultants Hub
A dedicated home at the Summit for the consultants who advise, plan and shape the independent network sector. Meet them at St Ermin’s on 17 November, and get to know them here first.
Meet the consultants
Each profile covers who they are, what they stand for, and their prediction for 2027.
Marisa Hayes
Senior Account Manager, National Underground Asset Register · Ordnance Survey
Marisa comes from a local authority street works background, having managed a local street gazetteer within a network management team. Having started with GeoPlace in 2020, Marisa joined the NUAR engagement team in October 2023, initially supporting local authority onboarding. During the last 2 years she has been responsible for the water and telcos sectors, engaging with key decision-makers and stakeholders. Working alongside OS colleagues she enjoys assisting asset owners to submit and publish their data. In her spare time, she is a keen bell ringer.
NUAR is a government digital service operated by Ordnance Survey providing secure, instant access to a standardised map of underground pipes and cables across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, currently covering 80% of known infrastructure. Its mission is to improve the safety and efficiency of installing, maintaining, operating and repairing buried infrastructure.
By complementing current safe dig processes, it reduces the time to access underground asset information, eliminating the need to contact multiple organisations and reducing delays that can average six days. It also presents asset data in a consistent format, making it easier to interpret and use.
With approximately 60,000 accidental strikes each year to the 4 million kilometres of assets, which cost the economy £2.4 billion and can put workers and the public at risk, NUAR is expected to generate more than £400 million in economic benefits through increased efficiency, fewer asset strikes and reduced disruption.
Readily accessible asset information to be available on NUAR, thanks to legislation and increased participation.
Consolidation of the market is likely to continue and, in times of uncertainty, NUAR can provide the backbone for asset information as these transfer ownership. NUAR can help remove the guesswork around asset ownership for other operators, contractors and local highway authorities.
James Wild
Managing Partner, Cenerva
James Wild is Managing Partner and a founding partner of Cenerva, an international ICT policy advisory and regulatory training practice. He is a recognised global expert in number portability, service switching, eSIM regulation and SIM registration optimisation.
James brings more than 30 years’ experience across engineering and telecommunications. In 2011, he founded Laurasia Associates, building it into a respected boutique advisory practice serving regulators and operators in more than 40 countries. Following its merger with Atlantic TM in 2017, James helped establish Cenerva as a leading international consultancy. He has also played a central role in developing Cenerva ICC’s Telecommunications Regulatory Master Classes, supporting regulators, operators and industry professionals through practical advice, training and specialist capacity building.
“The first phase of the Altnet story was about speed: raising capital, building fibre and reaching as many premises as possible. The next phase must be about resilience, sound economics and trust. Operators, investors, regulators and customers need evidence of coverage, take-up, service quality, investment and risk.
Good regulation should protect competition while recognising the realities of network economics; leadership should welcome consolidation where it strengthens the sector, while preserving choice.
Cenerva brings international experience, independent analysis and regulatory expertise to that conversation. Our aim is simple: to help shape a connected UK in which investment is sustainable, competition remains effective and all communities have access to opportunity.”
“My prediction is that the UK Altnet market will be smaller, more concentrated and more disciplined by 2027. The market is likely to be dominated by three to five scaled national or near-national platforms, alongside a smaller group of regionally strong specialists. That will be the result of commercial logic: with average homes projected to have access to 2.78 fibre connections, overbuild has diluted take-up and put sustained pressure on prices and returns.
Refinancing will be the immediate catalyst. Operators approaching debt maturities will need to demonstrate credible penetration, cash generation and a defensible footprint. Those that cannot will face lender-led sales, restructuring or administration. The PSTN retirement in January 2027 should create a final opportunity to migrate remaining copper customers, but it will not rescue weak business models on its own.
Regulation will become more important as consolidation changes local competition. Ofcom will need to balance incentives for investment with safeguards where a merger leaves an Altnet as the only practical network in an area. Successful survivors will focus on utilisation, service quality and sustainable economics, while wholesale access and effective customer choice remain central to a healthy market.”
Mike Jones CMIOSH
Chair, Safety & Health in Fibre Telecoms (SHiFT) Group · Head of SHEQ & ESG, ITS
Mike Jones is Chair of the Safety & Health in Fibre Telecoms (SHiFT) Group and Head of SHEQ & ESG at ITS. A Chartered Safety and Health Practitioner with more than a decade of experience in telecommunications, Mike is passionate about collaboration and raising standards across the industry. Having been involved with SHiFT for several years, he is focused on bringing operators, contractors and industry partners together to share learning, tackle common challenges and develop practical approaches that make the fibre sector safer for everyone.
Collaboration, not competition, is how we raise safety standards across our industry. SHiFT exists to improve health, safety and wellbeing across the fibre telecommunications industry through collaboration rather than competition. Our mission is to bring the industry together to share learning, develop consistent standards, promote best practice and openly discuss the challenges we face.
By connecting network operators, contractors, suppliers, training providers and industry partners, we aim to turn shared experience into practical improvements that prevent harm.
No single organisation has all the answers. By sharing what works, learning from incidents and near misses, and developing solutions together, SHiFT aims to continually raise standards and create a safer, healthier and more collaborative fibre industry.
2027 will be a year where collaboration becomes increasingly important across the fibre industry. As the sector continues to evolve from large scale network build towards connecting customers, maintaining networks and operating increasingly mature infrastructure, the risk profile will evolve with it.
I expect to see greater consistency in competency standards, stronger contractor assurance and much more effective use of shared industry data. Initiatives such as the SHiFT Incident Map can help us move beyond looking at incidents within individual organisations and begin identifying trends across the sector.
Technology will also play a greater role, whether through digital assurance, improved data analysis, AI or innovations that remove people from hazardous activities. But technology alone will not improve safety. The biggest opportunity for 2027 is greater openness between organisations. Sharing incidents, lessons learned and good practice allows the whole industry to improve rather than every organisation trying to solve the same problems independently.
For SHiFT, that means continuing to create the environment where that collaboration can happen.
Consultants: claim your place
A Consultants Hub profile puts you in front of the whole independent sector: your logo, your story, your prediction for 2027, and your presence at the Summit. To take part, contact info@inca.coop.