UK broadband supplier plunges into administration after rats gnaw cables
G Network has plunged into administration just a week after it was acquired by FitzWalter Capital from its previous owners, with rats reportedly gnawing through fibre cables
A UK broadband provider has gone into administration (stock)
A major broadband provider in the UK has collapsed into administration after rats allegedly chewed through its fibre cables.
G Network’s potential rescue has been scrapped due to worries that rodents have wreaked havoc on the fibre infrastructure.
Rival firm Community Fibre had been considering snapping up the troubled company’s assets but pulled out over fears of extensive rodent damage to cables.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Community Fibre’s chief executive Graeme Oxby confirmed the bailout wouldn’t go ahead, citing the massive expense of fixing rat-damaged cables.
“Rodents like ducts and they like fibres which are very tasty,” he explained.
“We’ve not shown much interest as we believe it has quite a lot of structural issues and would be quite an expensive fix.”
Last month, residents and businesses in Doncaster also suffered rat-related internet outages, reports the Mirror.
Local MP and Labour Party Energy Secretary Ed Miliband blamed these problems on “rodent damage”.
Miliband said he had “asked [Openreach] what they’re going to do to prevent widespread outages like this in future”.
Mr Oxby concluded: “Clearly there are going to be the distressed consolidations, maybe lender-led or specialist-led, but we don’t feel that consolidation is the only answer.
“Recently it’s seemed that alt-nets only exist to consolidate. We set up to be successful competitors to the incumbent and introduce some competition into the market… I think that’s got lost a bit.”
FitzWalter Capital, a company that specialises in buying distressed assets before selling them on, has lodged an application to appoint administrators at G Network, a provider of high-speed internet services in London.
This development comes just a week after FitzWalter Capital took control of G Network from its previous owners, the USS pension fund and Cube Infrastructure Managers.
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