APFN pays resellers £500 a line to sell CityFibre’s business Ethernet

AllPoints Fibre Networks (APFN), a wholesaler backed by Fern Trading, has added CityFibre’s dedicated business lines to Aquila, the ordering platform it sells to internet service providers, managed service providers and resellers. To mark the launch, APFN is paying those providers £500 cashback on each new CityFibre Ethernet 100, Flex 1000 or Ethernet 1000 circuit ordered by 31 December, alongside £100 on each new CityFibre full fiber broadband connection ordered from 14 October, as reported on 27 October by ISPreview.

APFN’s offer page limits the cashback to orders on 36-month or 60-month contracts. Existing circuits are excluded. The credit is applied to the provider’s first invoice after each circuit is installed and goes live. Nothing in the terms refers to the price the business customer pays.

The product APFN puts at the center of the offer is Flex 1000, which carries 200Mbps of committed bandwidth and can burst to 1Gbps. APFN describes it as a way to bridge the gap “between broadband and traditional high-capacity Ethernet services”. George Wareing, chief commercial officer at CityFibre, said it suits businesses that “have outgrown broadband”, in comments carried by ISPreview.

The offer shows how CityFibre’s business lines now reach the market. They are sold through independent aggregators that put several networks behind one portal, and APFN is paying resellers to move business customers from broadband onto multi-year dedicated contracts. A firm that buys its connectivity from a small local provider may now be quoted a CityFibre circuit ordered through a wholesaler it never deals with directly.

CityFibre’s step back from aggregation

In July CityFibre agreed to sell Entanet, the Telford-based wholesale business it bought in 2017, to Tom O’Hagan, founder and former chief executive of Virtual1. Wareing said the sale would let the company focus “exclusively on providing services over our own infrastructure”. Under the deal, which was subject to final approvals, Entanet will run as a standalone aggregator and become a wholesale customer of CityFibre. O’Hagan said he saw an opportunity “to consolidate a fragmented wholesale market”.

CityFibre’s business sales have been rising quickly. In the first quarter of 2026, it said, sales of business full fiber rose 133% and sales of Ethernet 42% year on year. It says its network reaches nearly five million premises, with enterprise services available to more than 260,000 businesses.

Its trading update of 6 October put revenue for the nine months to 30 September at £164m, up 36%, of which £127m came from consumers. The remaining £37m covers everything else, business lines included. Adjusted EBITDA rose to £60m. The same update said CityFibre was in discussions with its lenders to establish a stronger long-term capital structure, alongside a £900m equity commitment from shareholders proposed in August.

One portal, five networks

APFN was formed in 2023, when four regional providers – AllPoints Fibre, Jurassic Fibre, Swish Fibre and Giganet – combined into a single wholesaler. It is backed by Fern Trading and Octopus Investments. Aquila now offers Openreach, BT Wholesale, CityFibre and APFN’s own full fiber network, plus Ethernet from Sky Business Wholesale, and APFN says it reaches more than 32 million ready-for-service properties.

APFN’s incentives page also lists up to £1,500 cashback on Sky Business Wholesale Ethernet circuits. Nisreen El-kaloush, APFN’s chief commercial officer, said in comments published by ISPreview that Aquila puts CityFibre’s Ethernet and broadband behind a single supplier relationship, available to providers already on Aquila through the same portal and API with no further development, and that the cashback is meant to push providers to go after those business customers now.

CityFibre’s Ethernet range on Aquila tops out at 1Gbps; for customers that need 10Gbps, APFN’s offer page points to the Sky Business Wholesale and BT Wholesale lines on the same platform. It also says a customer can move from Ethernet 100 to Flex 1000, or from Flex 1000 to Ethernet 1000, without changing provider or the underlying technology.

The change for business buyers

For a director buying connectivity, the change is in who can sell a CityFibre dedicated line and on what terms. A provider already trading on Aquila can quote CityFibre circuits next to Openreach and Sky options without signing a separate contract with CityFibre or building a new integration, which is the cost APFN says it removes. More of the small providers that serve offices and single-site firms can therefore put an alternative network on the quote.

The £500 is paid only on 36-month and 60-month contracts, so the quotes it encourages are three-year or five-year commitments. The cashback goes to the provider. Whether any of it reaches the customer is a decision for each reseller, and APFN’s terms do not mention it.

The network behind those contracts belongs to a company that, by its own account, was still in discussions with its lenders on its capital structure at its last update, on 6 October. CityFibre has said its trading is strong, with adjusted EBITDA up from £15m to £60m in the nine months to 30 September, and that the new equity is meant to fund consolidation and network expansion. A business that signs a five-year Flex 1000 contract this quarter buys from a reseller, through APFN, over that network, and CityFibre has published no update on those talks since. APFN’s published terms do not address the network owner’s finances.