Q3 2025 UK ISP and network supplier metrics - a market overview
- Veronica Speiser
- 12 hours ago
- 9 min read
FTTP Takes the Lead: Full Fibre Connections Overtake FTTC
The UK broadband market regained momentum in Q3 2025, adding 64k subscribers and returning to growth across a total base of 28.94m lines. Full fibre (FTTP) adoption surged ahead at its fastest rate since nationwide rollouts began, reaching 11.56m connections and overtaking FTTC for the first time, with the latter decreasing to 10.60m. Full fibre coverage climbed to 79.5% of premises, with multi-network overbuild increasing sharply, and FTTP take-up, while strong, is expected to stabilise over the next year as the early-mover surge eases. Openreach expanded to 20.31m premises and added 551k FTTP customers, while BT Consumer delivered a second consecutive quarter of growth. CityFibre posted a standout 108k net adds as its Sky partnership went fully live, and Altnets collectively added 193k connections, lifting their FTTP base to 3.02m. However, with FTTP now mainstream and competition intensifying, Altnet pricing and operational models face increasing pressure, raising questions about how many can remain sustainable as take-up normalises and overlap with larger networks grows.
Watch the quarterly analysis presentation below.
In summary
Total Q3 2025 FTTB/H/P, FTTC, DOCSIS 3.1, DSL, FWA and satellite retail and wholesale connections saw a slight return to growth during the quarter and stood at an estimated 28.94m, up from 28.88m q-o-q and down from 29.01m in the previous year.
The fixed broadband market rebounded with 64k net additions in Q3, reversing the ~25k losses in Q2. However, this seasonal lift is short-lived, with the market expected to return to flat or negative growth in line with the overall trend for 2025.
Full fibre connections reached an estimated 11.56m up 7.9% q-o-q, and for the first time FTTP connections overtook FTTC subscriber lines with the latter decreasing to 10.60m.
Openreach continued to see fluctuations in its quarterly line losses with total broadband connections decreasing by 242k in the quarter compared to 169k losses in Q2, noting that this was due to moderate competitor losses with a weaker overall broadband and new homes market.
Openreach saw 551k full fibre net additions, bringing its FTTP subscriber base to 7.65m; BT’s Consumer division saw growth again for the second consecutive quarter with 1k net broadband additions to reach 8.21m (excluding its Business segment with an estimated 576k connections).
CityFibre had a strong quarter as its Sky agreement went fully live and reported 108k net additions bringing its total base to 730k.
Independent (or Altnet) providers[1] continued to focus on subscriber take-up and saw 193k net additions from 190k additions in the previous quarter, with a total consumer broadband FTTB/H/P subscriber base reached 3.02m, up 29% year-on-year.
Retail (consumer and business) sector
Q3 2025 saw modest gains in total consumer and business fixed connections to reach 28.94m; DSL connections dropped by 2.5% totalling 1.43m, FTTC (including G.Fast) reduced by 6.7% reaching a total of 10.60m, with FTTB/H/P lines increased 7.9% and overtook FTTC connections for the first time, totalling 11.56m (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Retail broadband connections by technology, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
BT’s Consumer division (we include BT’s Business segment in our reporting) remained positive (just) in Q3 with a gain of 1k net additions (with a total base of 8.78m) compared to the previous quarter’s gain of 11k subscribers; its FTTP base added 284k FTTP connections to reach 3.95m, of which Consumer 3.7m and Business 0.27m, and an increase of 32% year-on-year and representing 45% of its subscriber base.
For the other major ISPs, Vodafone again saw strong gains with 50k broadband net additions; with Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) reporting 26k losses, followed by Sky’s estimated decrease of 10k connections, and TalkTalk saw another quarter of monumental losses of around 120k connections.
VMO2 completed the acquisition of the small business broadband provider Daisy (branded O2 Daisy) and reported Daisy’s 87k business broadband customer base under its consumer segment.
Retail Business connections reached an estimated 1.97m at the close of the quarter, up slightly from 1.96m in the previous quarter. FTTC connections dropped to 536k from 577k in Q2 2025. FTTP connections increased to 964k from 950k (Figure 2).
Figure 2 Retail business broadband connections by technology, as of Q3 2025
Following the 1 July organisational change, BT’s Business unit is solely focused on serving UK-based customers, with all international activities transferred to the International division. Its Business division seems to be stabilising as it reported a loss of 6k connections, bringing its total to 576k, including 275k FTTP connections (up 42% y-o-y).
Following the 1 July organisational change, BT’s Business unit is solely focused on serving UK-based customers, with all international activities transferred to the International division. Its Business division seems to be stabilising as it reported a loss of 6k connections, bringing its total to 576k, including 275k FTTP connections (up 42% y-o-y).
The Virgin Media O2 Daisy merger completed on 1 August, the 2025 financial year guidance will be bolstered by the revenue generation of the integrated business operations (around an additional £125m to Group revenue in 2025), along with the market share gains of the giffgaff broadband launch over nexfibre; the 2026 outlook is more challenging as the fixed line market stagnates and VMO2 remains subject to how the Altnet consolidations pan out over the next half year.
On 13 August, Zen Internet and Sky Business Wholesale announced a new partnership: Zen’s business customers (and its partner network) will gain access to Sky’s Ethernet-enabled exchange footprint, which spans over 2,800 exchanges, with more than 80% enabled for 10 Gbps services.
Figure 3 Top 5 retail broadband providers and Altnets full fibre connections, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
BT added 284k FTTP subscribers in the quarter, bringing its retail full fibre base to 3.67m, up 32% y-o-y, comprising 45% of the total base. Its converged base continued to grow, up to 25.9% (H1 FY25: 23.1%) of all broadband and mobile customers now taking both services.
VMO2 saw a 10% growth in its FTTP base to reach an estimated 596k subscribers, and we estimate its full fibre penetration rate to be 8% where available. Historically, August and September have returned stronger operational KPIs for VMO2 however, despite the acquisition of Daisy’s base the underlying losses for Q3 remain in line with the previous quarter’s lacklustre performance for the operator.
CityFibre saw the largest gains (108k additions) as a focused wholesale consolidator and Sky being fully onboarded and offering services in non-Openreach footprint areas.
Altnets remain a manageable threat to Openreach with the latter expanding its FTTP footprint at pace it should navigate the tricky Altnet consolidation shake-up steadily. We estimate the total number of Altnet FTTP connections to have reached 3.02m up from 2.82m in the previous quarter. See Table 1 for year-on-year take-up rates for selected Altnets.
Table 1 Selected Altnet suppliers and retail ISPs full fibre penetration rates, Q3 2024 and Q3 2025
Retail new subscriber entry-level pricing trends for full fibre / gigabit-capable services
Entry-level superfast (>30 Mbps) pricing decreased 2.5% q-o-q with the average tariff coming in around £31.00 per month (Figure 4). This is due to seasonal price reductions (aimed at university students).
BT’s entry-level 36 / 9 Mbps FTTC package came in at £34.99 per month and continued to be above the national average however, its brand equity, large coverage, and predictable pricing structure allow it to continue winning and retaining customers - even in a price-sensitive segment. BT reported 36k net adds to its TV base during H1 further shoring up its ARPU.
VMO2 came in at the most expensive at £48.00 per month for its DOCSIS 3.1-based 50 Mbps package. However, this lower-speed tier is harder for consumers to find on their website due to it being in the fine print of the offerings, VMO2 now actively promotes its 150 DOCSIS or FTTP package as being its entry-level package.
In addition to the major suppliers, we tracked 5 Altnet providers ranging from the larger national players (Hyperoptic and Gigaclear) to London-focused urban supplier Community Fibre, and regional ISPs Fibrus and brsk. Gigaclear continued to be the cheapest major Altnet offering symmetric 200 Mbps entry-level packages for £17.00 per month (Figure 5).
Figure 4 Retail ISPs entry-level superfast pricing, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
Figure 5 Retail ISPs entry-level ultrafast pricing, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
Hyperoptic remained the most expensive at £45.00 per month for its symmetrical 150 Mbps entry-level package as it seeks to increase its ARPU, focus on uptake, and reduce expansion costs.
Sky’s 150 / 26 Mbps package cost £27.00 followed by TalkTalk’s competitively priced 150 / 30 Mbps package cost £26.00 followed by Fibrus’ 106 / 31 Mbps £24.99 monthly package and Vodafone’s symmetrical 150 Mbps tier costing £23.00. Community Fibre rivalled Gigaclear with its symmetrical 150 Mbps package costing £19.00 per month.
Infrastructure (wholesale) sector
Total Q2 2025 FTTB/H/P, FTTC, DOCSIS 3.1, DSL, FWA and satellite wholesale connections saw a very slight decrease during the quarter and stood at an estimated 28.94m, up from 28.88m q-o-q and down from 29.01m in the previous year.
Our data for Q3 2025 puts full fibre coverage at 79.5% of the UK total premises up from 77.8% in Q2.
11.6m premises had access to two or more FTTP networks (up by 5.9% since the previous quarter). Just over 1.9m premises were covered by 3+ fibre networks.
Openreach passed 1.2m premises with FTTP, putting its build rate at an average of 90k per week (on track to achieve up to 5m this fiscal year), and its total FTTP footprint reached 20.3m premises, of which 5.5m in rural locations (Figure 6).
CityFibre saw its best quarter to date with 108k total net additions, and we estimate Sky’s onboarding having added around 50k of these lines. This uplift exceeds what would be expected from Sky provisioning only new customers (~30k per quarter), suggesting Sky also offered existing customers without Openreach FTTP the chance to upgrade to CityFibre, with uptake of roughly 10% making the numbers align.
Figure 6 Openreach ultrafast coverage, connections and penetration rates, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
Openreach reported a loss of 242k broadband lines (up from 169k losses in Q2 and on par with Q1’s 243k losses). The higher net losses this quarter reflect normal variation but were noticeably amplified by Sky’s full-quarter onboarding onto CityFibre.
VMO2 announced that its combined full fibre footprint is nearing the 8m premises passes mark at the close of quarter. Basing these figures on nexfibre’s announcement that its footprint covered 2.44m premises with VMO2 adding 139k full fibre premises to its nexfibre build during the quarter, along with its own HFC network FTTP overlay (Project Mustang) of around 5.10m premises we estimate its total FTTP footprint to have reached 7.5m premises at the close of Q3 2025 (Figure 7).
Figure 7 Virgin Media O2’s combined FTTP network deployments, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
VMO2’s outlook should improve from 2026 onwards, as Altnet build activity stalls and consolidation (likely under CityFibre or nexfibre) reduces competitive pressure. M&A discussions are accelerating, and line-loss headwinds are expected to ease over the next 12 - 24 months. Additional tailwinds include footprint expansion via Openreach/CityFibre wholesale, market-share gains from the GiffGaff broadband launch, EBITDA uplift from O2 Daisy synergies, and contract-price changes turning positive in 2026, positioning VMO2 for a stronger post-2025 recovery.
Figure 8 provides a flavour of the year-on-year take-up rates to FTTP or gigabit-capable networks, with Openreach dominating the sector in terms of full fibre penetration. VMO2’s DOCSIS 3.1 technology, which for several years boasted higher speed advantages, has been steadily receding (down to 30% in Q3 and expected to drop below this in the next two quarters) as more affordable and faster packages have become readily available due to overbuild by the Altnets.
Figure 8 FTTP / Gigabit-capable broadband take-up rates, Q3 2024 – Q3 2025
Altnets FTTP connections increased by 6.8% during the quarter, with 193k net additions with a total base of 3.02m.
Openreach’s expanding FTTP footprint and rising adoption continue to strengthen its position and Altnet share gains should ease as their slowed build programmes take effect. Industry consolidation may create short-term disruption, but the overall trajectory is unchanged.
[1] Point Topic tracks the quarterly key metrics of 106 Altnet network suppliers and ISPs, the figures included here are based on company reports, market resources and our estimates, where necessary.
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