European Broadband Operators and Tariffs Benchmark Report, Q1 2026

Point Topic tracks the quarterly changes in the standalone and bundled broadband tariffs provided by European fixed-line residential and business operators. This article presents selected highlights from our latest tariff benchmarks at the end of March 2026, comparing trends to December 2025.

The complete tariff data — including all charts, country-level tables, regional breakdowns and operator-level analysis — is available within Point Topic's European Broadband Statistics subscription service.

Introduction

In Q1 2026, we tracked 1,453 residential and 940 business broadband tariffs across 31 European countries. The quarter tells a story of two shifting dynamics: at the technology level, copper continues its accelerating retreat while multi-gigabit fibre cements its dominance; and at the regional level, Eastern Europe is moving upmarket fast, with both average and median residential prices rising by more than 10% quarter-on-quarter.

Residential broadband: key highlights

Copper's endgame is here. Just 37 copper residential packages were tracked in Q1 2026, down from 41 in Q4 2025 and 56 in Q1 2025. The average copper tariff now stands at $54 PPP for an average speed of only 22 Mbps, making it by far the most expensive technology on a cost-per-Mbps basis at $2.48 PPP per Mbps. Managed copper switch-off programmes are accelerating across Europe, with BT Group/Openreach, Deutsche Telekom and Orange France all progressing structured retirement schedules.

Fibre is the new normal, and getting faster.  We tracked 1,165 residential fibre packages in Q1 2026, up from 1,028 in Q4 2025. The average fibre tariff held steady at $71 PPP while average speeds rose to 927 Mbps, up from 815 Mbps in Q4 2025. Residential gigabit tariffs (900 Mbps+) increased to 490, and packages of 2 Gbps or more rose to 137, as XGS-PON deployments mature and operators compete on speed and price.

Wireless FWA is growing but rationalising.  We recorded 146 wireless (FWA/4G +5G FWA) residential tariffs in Q1 2026. The UK remains the largest single FWA market with 67 packages, boosted by the launch of VodafoneThree's 5G Home Broadband product targeting the 3.7 million homes still on copper or part-fibre. Portugal accounted for 30 FWA packages, reflecting the ongoing role of fixed wireless in harder-to-reach geographies.

Figure 1. Average monthly cost and download bandwidth by technology, residential broadband.  Source: Point Topic.

Business broadband: key highlights

The average monthly cost for business broadband across all technologies was $145 PPP in Q1 2026, up from $138 PPP in Q4 2025. Fibre dominated with 750 packages tracked, at an average of $138 PPP per month and average speeds of 1,011 Mbps. Cable business tariffs contracted to 83 packages as major operators including VodafoneZiggo, Telenet/Wyre and Sunrise migrate business customers toward DOCSIS 4.0 or FTTP.

The business broadband market has moved decisively from infrastructure build-out to commercial realism. The constraint is no longer access availability but the pace at which AI workloads, cloud connectivity and multi-site networking requirements translate into higher-value contracts.

Figure 2. Average monthly cost and downstream bandwidth by technology, business broadband. Source: Point Topic.

Regional trends: the East is catching up on price

The most striking development in Q1 2026 is the sharp upward movement in Eastern European residential pricing. The average monthly subscription in Eastern Europe rose by 10.1% quarter-on-quarter from $55 PPP to $61 PPP, while the median rose by 12.4% from $45 PPP to $51 PPP. The consistency between average and median confirms this is a broad-based shift and not an outlier effect. Average speeds simultaneously rose by 14.4% to 819 Mbps, suggesting this is driven by subscribers migrating to higher-speed fibre tiers rather than simple price inflation.

Western European pricing told a more nuanced story. The average fell slightly by 2.6% to $71 PPP, while the median actually increased by 3.4% to $60 PPP. This divergence indicates that mid-market pricing crept upward while entry-level competition kept headline averages in check. New fibre entrants such as Digi Communications, along with continued promotional activity in Belgium and the Netherlands, are driving this dynamic.

Figure 3 . Regional bundled and standalone broadband tariffs and average downstream speeds by technology, residential broadband. Source: Point Topic.

Country highlights

Switzerland topped the speed rankings with an average downstream speed of 3,267 Mbps, followed by Austria (2,950 Mbps), Denmark (2,437 Mbps) and Slovakia (2,181 Mbps). Germany's entry into the top six at 1,850 Mbps is notable given its historically slower fibre transition, and reflects the accelerating impact of Deutsche Telekom's rollout programme.

Denmark led the cost-efficiency table at just $0.02 PPP per Mbps, with Slovakia, Luxembourg, Switzerland and Malta all coming in at $0.03 PPP. Romania, Czech Republic and Ireland followed at $0.04 PPP — demonstrating that Eastern European markets continue to offer exceptional value per Mbps even as headline prices rise.

Malta stands out as the most affordable market in Europe by median monthly charge at just $21 PPP, followed by Czech Republic ($43 PPP) and Luxembourg ($45 PPP). At the expensive end, Italy topped the median table at $132 PPP, followed by Austria at $129 PPP — markets where even entry-level tariffs are priced at a premium, with the tightest spreads between entry, median and average of any country in our dataset.

The variance analysis across all 31 countries reveals important structural differences.

Denmark shows the highest variance (121.3) — ranking 24th by entry level but 6th by median, indicating a two-speed market where budget entry products coexist with a predominantly mid-to-high-cost portfolio. Estonia (97.3) and Iceland (85.3) also show wide spreads. At the other end, Malta, Romania and Germany rank consistently across all three metrics, reflecting coherent and predictable pricing environments.

Table 1. Country ranking by median, entry-level, and average residential broadband tariffs, Q1 2026. Source: Point Topic.

The full European statistics dataset covers all 31 countries with operator-level tariff data, technology breakdowns, regional comparisons, speed-tier analysis and quarterly trend tracking across both residential and business markets.

If you are not a subscriber to our European statistics data subscription and would like to gain access to the full dataset past and present, contact us.