Exascale readies wholesale access to on-net and off-network partners through TM Forum APIs and framework

West Midlands alternative network operator unveils Exascale Atlas, advances its Nexus wholesale platform and invests in AI-driven network operations to improve efficiency, customer experience and support future acquisitions.

TELFORD, SHROPSHIRE – 8 October 2026 – Exascale, a growing alternative network operator and wholesale telecommunications provider serving Shropshire, the West Midlands and customers nationally, has announced further investment in its Operational Support Systems (OSS) and Business Support Systems (BSS), with a focus on automation, artificial intelligence and industry-standard interoperability.

The investment builds upon Exascale Nexus, the company’s previously announced wholesale connectivity and service orchestration platform, while also marking the first public announcement of Exascale Atlas, its new fibre infrastructure management platform.

Nexus is being developed around TM Forum Open APIs and associated frameworks, creating a unified environment through which wholesale partners will be able to access connectivity delivered across Exascale’s own full-fibre infrastructure and its national off-network partners.

Atlas will complement Nexus by providing greater visibility and operational control over Exascale’s physical fibre infrastructure, supporting network provisioning, asset management, service assurance and engineering workflows.

Together, the platforms form part of Exascale’s strategy to simplify service delivery, reduce operational complexity, improve customer satisfaction and establish a scalable foundation for organic growth and potential future acquisitions.

The next competitive battleground is data, not just fibre

As the UK’s alternative network market matures and operators increasingly consider consolidation, Exascale believes competitive advantage will depend not only on ownership of physical infrastructure but also on how effectively operators use data, automation and technology to deliver services.

Thomas Bibb, Chief Executive Officer of Exascale, commented:

We’ve grown from a small ISP into a vertically integrated ISP and alternative network operator, and more recently into a wholesale aggregator. That journey has given us a unique perspective on the opportunities and operational challenges facing our industry.

As telecommunications operators that have invested heavily in physical fibre infrastructure begin to mature, consolidate or reach the end of their journey through acquisitions and mergers, I think we need to ask ourselves an important question: is simply owning fibre infrastructure still enough to be considered a genuine unique selling point?

When multiple operators can serve the same property or Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), fibre ownership alone becomes less of a differentiator. Owning and operating our own network remains important, but we believe the next competitive battleground will be data, automation and the ability to deliver services seamlessly across multiple operators.

That’s why we’re investing heavily in Exascale Nexus and Exascale Atlas. Nexus will simplify how wholesale customers purchase and manage connectivity across different networks, while Atlas will provide greater control and visibility of our own physical fibre infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence is also becoming increasingly important to how we operate. We’re heavily leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs), which we’ve trained and adapted to understand our network, operational processes and common service issues. These models are helping us diagnose faults, resolve common problems and proactively identify potential failures across our infrastructure.

Our ambition goes beyond responding to faults more efficiently. We want our systems to recognise the early warning signs of network degradation, correlate information from multiple sources and automatically raise engineering work orders before an emerging issue becomes service-affecting.

In some cases, that could mean identifying and resolving a problem before the customer even knows there was one.

We believe AI can fundamentally change the economics of operating a telecommunications network. Rather than continually increasing headcount to manage growing service volumes, we can use intelligent automation to improve productivity, reduce operating costs and allow our people to concentrate on the more complex issues where their expertise adds the greatest value.

By combining these capabilities with TM Forum APIs and next-generation OSS/BSS technology, we believe we can scale our business without increasing operational complexity at the same rate.

This also creates opportunities beyond organic growth. A common platform for integrating networks, managing infrastructure and automating operations could make future acquisitions and consolidation considerably more straightforward.

Ultimately, we’re building the operational foundations for a larger, more efficient and more automated Exascale Group, and we cannot wait to share more of what we’re developing with the market.

Thomas Bibb, Chief Executive Officer of Exascale

Exascale Nexus: Simplifying wholesale connectivity

Exascale Nexus is being developed as a unified wholesale service management and orchestration platform, enabling business partners to access connectivity services delivered across multiple network operators through a consistent interface.

Using TM Forum Open APIs and associated industry frameworks, Nexus aims to reduce the complexity traditionally associated with integrating different wholesale providers and managing services across multiple networks.

The platform is being designed to support the complete service lifecycle, including availability checking, quoting, ordering, provisioning, service assurance and billing.

Wholesale partners will benefit from a consistent ordering and management experience, regardless of whether services are delivered across Exascale’s own infrastructure or through an off-network provider.

Planned capabilities include automated order orchestration, real-time provisioning updates, integrated fault management, service inventory visibility and partner self-service.

By abstracting the operational differences between network providers, Nexus is intended to reduce manual intervention, improve service delivery times and support greater operational efficiency.

Exascale unveils Atlas: Intelligent fibre infrastructure management

For the first time, Exascale has publicly revealed Exascale Atlas, its dedicated platform for managing the company’s physical fibre infrastructure.

Atlas is being developed to improve how Exascale provisions, monitors, manages and maintains its network assets, providing engineering teams with greater visibility of infrastructure, associated services and operational performance.

The platform will support the management of Exascale’s growing fibre footprint, helping to streamline engineering workflows, improve the accuracy of infrastructure records and simplify network operations.

Atlas is also intended to play an important role in Exascale’s wider automation strategy, providing an operational foundation for intelligent diagnostics, proactive maintenance and automated engineering processes.

While Nexus focuses on wholesale service delivery and commercial operations, Atlas will provide the infrastructure management capabilities required to support Exascale’s own network.

The two platforms are being developed as distinct but complementary components of a wider operational architecture, enabling Exascale to integrate service delivery, network intelligence and infrastructure management more effectively.

AI-driven network operations and proactive service assurance

Artificial intelligence forms an increasingly important part of Exascale’s operational strategy.

The company is investing in LLM-based capabilities to support engineering, service delivery and customer support teams with fault diagnosis, troubleshooting, service assurance and network monitoring.

By combining network telemetry, service inventory, historical fault information and operational workflows, Exascale aims to develop systems capable of identifying emerging network issues before they become service-affecting.

The longer-term objective is to automate elements of fault investigation, corrective action and engineering work-order creation, allowing potential problems to be addressed earlier and reducing the need for manual intervention.

Exascale believes this approach could reduce repair times, improve service availability and allow its operational teams to manage increasing service volumes without a proportional increase in administrative overhead.

The company sees AI as an opportunity to improve the productivity of its existing workforce, allowing employees to focus on complex technical challenges, customer relationships and higher-value activities.

Building the foundations for future acquisitions

Beyond improving day-to-day operations, Exascale views its investment in Nexus, Atlas and AI-driven automation as an important foundation for its longer-term growth strategy.

As the UK alternative network sector continues to mature, Exascale believes opportunities may arise to acquire smaller operators and integrate their infrastructure and customer bases into the Exascale Group.

One of the challenges associated with telecommunications acquisitions is the integration of different operational systems, network technologies, supplier relationships and customer management processes.

Exascale is developing a common operational architecture intended to accommodate additional networks and operating businesses without requiring each acquisition to retain an entirely separate set of systems.

Nexus would provide a consistent commercial and service management environment, while Atlas would support the operational management of physical network infrastructure.

Combined with intelligent automation, the platforms could enable Exascale to integrate acquired businesses more efficiently, reduce duplicated operational processes and realise economies of scale.

Thomas said:

One of the challenges with acquiring another telecommunications operator is that you’re not simply acquiring customers or fibre assets. You’re often inheriting entirely different operational systems, processes, supplier relationships and data.

If we can build a platform capable of abstracting much of that complexity, it opens up some interesting opportunities for Exascale.

We see the potential to acquire and integrate smaller operators, bringing their networks and customers into a common operational environment while retaining the value of the underlying infrastructure.

This isn’t simply about replacing spreadsheets or making existing processes faster. It’s about building the operational foundations of a much larger business.

Thomas Bibb, Chief Executive Officer of Exascale

Investing in sustainable growth

Exascale intends to continue investing in its own physical fibre infrastructure while expanding its national wholesale capabilities and the technology used to operate services across multiple networks.

The company believes that combining infrastructure ownership with wholesale aggregation, open industry standards and intelligent automation will allow it to deliver a more scalable and efficient service proposition.

The development of Nexus and Atlas reflects Exascale’s view that the future success of telecommunications operators will increasingly depend on their ability to use technology, data and automation to deliver services more efficiently.

Further details of the platforms, including wholesale partner access, additional capabilities and availability, will be announced as development progresses.