Fibre Tycoon: build Britain's full fibre network

A free UK broadband strategy game

It is 2010. The country runs on copper, the incumbent is still pushing fibre to street cabinets, and nobody has heard of an altnet. You have forty five million pounds of the bank's money, two build teams and a map of Britain. Fibre Tycoon is a business simulation about the economics of building a full fibre network: what it costs to trench a town, why passing a home earns you nothing until somebody buys, and why take-up matters more than the homes passed figure everybody quotes.

What is in the game

• 285 real UK towns and cities at their true coordinates, across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• 68 rival networks, each with its own pricing, service quality, competence and appetite for debt
• Real events from 2010 to 2035, including the pandemic shift to working from home, the console launches of November 2020, record game patch days, and the copper switch off at the end of January 2027
• Merger control based on how many towns you and a rival both serve, with divestment remedies
• Lending covenants, market sentiment, public subsidy and eleven ranks from Cable Puller to Peer of the Realm

Who made it

Fibre Tycoon was created by Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith, founder of BroadbandSwitch.uk, a UK broadband comparison and research site. You can reach him on 0330 122 1223 or at ams@upleashed.com. Sycamore House, Glen Duff, Lezayre, Isle of Man, IM7 2AT.

Common questions

Is Fibre Tycoon free?

Yes. There is no signup, no account, no payment and no advertising inside the game.

Does it need installing?

No. It is a single web page and runs in any modern browser.

Are the figures real?

The geography, the towns and the sequence of events are real. Every financial number is tuned for enjoyable play rather than for forecasting.

Can I save my game?

Yes, to a file you keep. Nothing is stored on any server.