Research Round-up August 2025
- Veronica Speiser
- Sep 1
- 10 min read
Point Topic’s August publications: UK broadband availability in Q2 2025: FTTP approaching 80%; Q2 2025 UK ISP and network supplier metrics - a market overview
Key publication of the month:
UK Broadband Levels Off, Openreach and CityFibre Push Ahead
In summary
Total Q2 2025 FTTB/H/P, FTTC, DOCSIS 3.1, DSL, FWA and satellite retail and wholesale connections saw a very slight decrease during the quarter and stood at an estimated 28.91m, down from 28.92m q-o-q and 28.98m in the previous year.
The fixed broadband market saw -14k net broadband subscriber losses compared to ~88k net losses in Q1 2025, showing the market has firmly reached the saturation point.
Openreach saw a record 566k full fibre net additions, bringing its FTTP subscriber base to 7.09m; BT’s Consumer division saw growth again for the second consecutive quarter with 11k net broadband additions to reach 8.22m (excluding its Business segment with an estimated 582k connections).
CityFibre’s connections have increased by 69k to reach 650k during the quarter, with an overall penetration rate of 16%; however, in its most mature markets, take-up rates are around 40%.
Retail (consumer and business) sector
Q2 2025 saw a loss in total consumer and business fixed connections to reach 28.91m; DSL connections dropped by 12% totalling 1.47m, FTTC reduced by 5% reaching a total of 11.10m, with FTTB/H/P lines picking up the slack with an 8% increase in uptake, totalling 11.03m (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Retail broadband connections by technology, Q2 2024 – Q2 2025
BT’s Consumer division (which includes business) recovered in Q2 with a gain of 11k net additions compared to the previous quarter’s gain of 4k subscribers; its FTTP base added 212k FTTP connections to reach 3.66m, of which Consumer 3.4m and Business 0.26m, and an increase of 32% year-on-year.
For the other major ISPs, Vodafone again saw strong gains with ~44k broadband net additions; with Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) had a tough quarter reporting 51k losses, followed by Sky’s estimated decrease of -12k connections, and TalkTalk saw another quarter of losses of around -20k connections, although not nearly as significant in previous quarters.
Retail Business connections reached an estimated 1.96m at the close of the quarter, up slightly from 1.87m in the previous quarter. FTTC connections dropped to ~577k from ~737k in Q1 2025. FTTP connections increased to ~950k from ~686k (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Retail business broadband connections by technology, as of Q2 2025
In May, VMO2 announced the creation of a new B2B company, combining VMO2 Business and Daisy Group, with an ownership split of 70% Virgin Media O2 and 30% Daisy Group.
The O2 Daisy merger completed on 1 August, and 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.
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Key August telecoms sector news
BT Group News
28 August – ISPReview reported that EE’s current approach to they have taken to its top 1.6 Gbps broadband tier which partly cuts BT Wholesale out of the equation, will be adopted across its slower speed tiers (900 Mbps and below).
Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) News
1 August – Telefónica confirmed that it will be scrapping its previously planned wholesale network rival to Openreach – NetCo – a subsidiary of Liberty Global and Telefónica’s VMO2 that would form a national fixed operator to take over VMO2’s HFC and fibre network as a wholesaler, with VMO2 becoming an anchor tenant of the entity. Telefónica confirmed that due to the company’s ongoing debt burden, it wouldn’t be pursuing the creation of the entity.
4 August – O2 Daisy launched, promising to “make every business better” and shake up the B2B telecoms market. The new company, which, from the outset, is the country’s second largest small and medium-sized business solutions provider. With the consolidation of Daisy Group is expected to increase revenue by approximately £125 million in 2025, and, when combined with integration activity, the transaction will drive an expected broadly neutral impact to Adjusted EBITDA, ahead of 2026 synergy realisation.
The united company brings together the large customer base and scaled fixed and mobile networks of Virgin Media O2 with the agile platforms, broad product sets and deep B2B expertise of Daisy Group.
6 August – Virgin Media O2’s 3G switch off to continue in Watford on 17 September. The announcement follows the switch-offs that have already been successfully completed in Durham (April), Norwich, Telford, Guildford (16 July) and Torquay (4 August).
The company’s 3G network, first launched more than 20 years ago, today carries less than 2% of all network data – a figure which continues to fall. The switch-off of this older technology – agreed by the Government and all mobile network operators in 2021 – allows providers like Virgin Media O2 to reallocate mobile spectrum to more efficient 4G and 5G services and improve customers’ experience with faster data speeds, more reliable streaming and higher quality voice calls.
7 August – O2 has partnered with connectivity infrastructure-as-a-service provider Freshwave to deliver five small cells in St Ives and three in Newquay, with a further five set to go live soon. The innovative small cells are already boosting mobile capacity in these busy destinations.
12 August – Virgin Media O2 creates new £1m apprenticeship talent fund to support the next generation of STEM workers.
CityFibre (CF) News
27 August – CityFibre announced it has reached its one-year milestone of Project Gigabit in Cambridgeshire.
29 August – CityFibre’s lack of progress in delivering its Project Gigabit for Kent (Lot 29) has been raised by the Kent County Council (KCC). The lack of progress in rolling out better broadband technology for Kent’s rural communities has been raised with the Government Minister by a KCC Cabinet Member. Building Digital UK (BDUK) is the Government-sponsored agency tasked with delivering the £112m scheme and it promised 1,000 Mbps per second to over 50,000 homes and businesses, when the contract was finally signed in January 2024. To date, BDUK have still not published any indications as to when local areas are likely to benefit from these connections – or details on whether any premises have been connected to date.
Independent Operators (Altnets) News
1 August – Quickline announced that it had connected ‘more than 2,000’ rural homes and businesses in North Yorkshire as part of its (Lot 31) Project Gigabit contract awarded in summer 2024. Under the terms of the government contract, Quickline were required to connect 866 premises by the end of June 2025. They have revealed the actual total number now ready to connect is 2,130.
5 August – ITS and asset re-use specialist AssetHUB have formed a strategic partnership to bolster the delivery of high-capacity networks across major UK cities. Providing Altnets, enterprise organisations, government bodies, and carriers with a centralised platform to purchase dark fibre assets through a secure marketplace enables smarter, more efficient deployments to decrease time to market.
ITS has partnered with AssetHUB (part of the Hubbub Group) thanks to their real-world experience operating in Sweden. The partnership also enables ITS to benefit from the marketplace as a buyer, sourcing infrastructure assets to support build and expansion plans.
5 August – ISPReview reported that Wessex Internet will expand its Project Gigabit South Wiltshire (LOT 30) contract from the original 14,500 premises to reach 21,197permises. The funding has therefore also increased and according to the new notice, the awarded value after modification of LOT 30 is now £24,007,064 (“increased by £5,189,447“).
6 August – Project Gigabit published a modification to Gigaclear’s East Gloucestershire (LOT 18) contract, reducing the scope of the 4,400 premises passed by 899 premises thus decreasing the value of the contract to £10.81m down from £16.68m with end date of the project also being changed from end 2027 to July 2034.
12 August – Netomnia officially launched its B2B wholesale platform, opening up its national footprint to MSPs and B2B providers looking to scale with high-performance, capital-efficient infrastructure. Netomnia’s network covered 2.56m premises with 100k business locations included. It’s wholesale business portfolio will include:
Ethernet over FTTP: Delivered over XGS-PON with symmetrical speeds and 5-hour SLAs — an ideal alternative to traditional Ethernet, with superior economics and consistent performance.
Business and Consumer FTTP: Up to 8 Gbps across the UK’s second-largest Alt-Net footprint — built for both volume and quality.
Ethernet Point-to-Point: Dedicated, uncontended fibre with bandwidths from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps — ideal for enterprise-grade connectivity.
Dark Fibre: Passive infrastructure offering partners full control to build and manage their network.
Aquiss shortly after announced it had launched several business packages via Netomnia’s network with the entry-level 75 Mbps speed tier costing £30 (+VAT)/month and £120 (+VAT)/ month for its 7,000 Mbps top-tier.
12 August – Fibrus announced a major milestone in that it had passed 100k premises in Cumbria less than three years after it started building in the region in November 2022.
13 August – Zen Internet announced a new strategic partnership with Sky Business Wholesale allowing Zen’s partners and direct business customers can now access Sky's Ethernet-enabled exchange footprint.
Spanning over 2,800 exchanges, with more than 80 per cent enabled for 10 Gb services, the collaboration marks a significant step forward for Zen’s ambition to deliver high-performance, scalable connectivity solutions to businesses across the UK.
14 August – Scottish-based supplier Highland Broadband secured an additional £50m in funding (£40m coming from AlphaReal Capital and a further £10m from the Scottish National Investment Bank), ensures Highland Broadband have the capital, capability and capacity to continue its expansion and remain on track to reach over 150 towns and villages across rural Scotland in the coming year.
15 August – TOTSCo announced it had reached the1.5m OTS Switches since its launch.
18 August – GoFibre secured £125m in additional funding (£45m debt facility from SNIB and £80m by Hamburg Commercial Bank).
25 August – WightFibre have reached the 25,000th customer milestone on the Isle of Wight. Its network covers 87% of the island (72k premises).
26 August – Hey! Broadband that sells retail broadband services over F&W Networks, announced it had reached the 40,000th customer connection up from 25,000 a year ago.
27 August – Fibrus announced the successful completion of the £200m government-funded Project Stratum roll-out. Upon completion, the project brought full fibre broadband to over 81,000 premises across Northern Ireland. The venture was also backed by the Department for the Economy, Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and the UK Government.
28 August – Community Fibre announced it will be connecting VodafoneThree customers to more than 1.3m homes in London, following the recently announced strategic wholesale agreement between the companies.
Using Community Fibre’s network to provide symmetrical download and upload speeds of up to 2.5 Gbps, this partnership will allow VodafoneThree to offer its full fibre products on Community Fibre’s footprint across the capital.
Other News
1 August – Shared Rural Network (SRN) announced the latest government-funded mast upgrade has been activated in Yorkshire. This adds to already SRN delivered enhanced geographic 4G connectivity in Yorkshire, including bringing 4G connectivity from all mobile network operators to parts of the North York Moors National Park, Helmsley, Nawton, Harome, Wombleton, Nunnington, Great Edstone, Great Habton, Pockley, Cold Kirby, Scawton, Scackleton, Cawton, Little Barugh, Old Byland, and North Grimston for the first time. Together, the SRN brings geographic 4G coverage from all mobile network operators to 494,033m of roads in Yorkshire so far.
5 August – SRN announced that 62 government-funded mast upgrades as part of the programme were activated by the end of July 2025. 31 sites are now live in Wales, 15 in Scotland and 16 in England.
Recent activations during July 2025 mean that areas including parts of Strome Ferry, Whithypool, Rosthwaite, Longthwaite, Seatoller and Manesty have more reliable coverage. These activations add to the coverage enhancements already made to communities across Scotland, England and Wales.
6 August – TalkTalk Group published its annual accounts and reported a loss of 420k broadband customers, putting the total subscriber base at 3.2m for the year ended 28 February 2025. The group also reported a loss of £465m (before tax). On 7 August, TalkTalk Group announced £100m new funding facilities committed by existing shareholders. The Group also confirmed that more than 90% of its first lien creditors and approximately 87% of its second lien creditors have signed up to a support agreement to implement the transaction announced on 25th July.
10 August – In a merger update from Vodafone-Three, 'MOCN' is the first major mobile benefit of the Vodafone-Three merger in the UK for customers of both networks. Customers of both Vodafone UK and Three UK will be able to use both networks, so their phones will use the signal of whichever network is best at their location. This will bring better mobile coverage to 16,500 square kilometres of the country – an area roughly 10x the size of London. This development was made possible by the successful merger of the two companies in the UK to form VodafoneThree.
11 August – UKRI announced £13m in funding to develop future 6G and fibre technologies.
13 August – DSIT announced the launch of its £9.5m Digital Inclusion Fund (as part of its Digital Inclusion Action Plan – First Steps published in February 2025). £7.242m will support digital inclusion projects in England, with proportionate funding going to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The objectives of the Fund are to support innovative interventions to produce new knowledge on ‘what works’, building the evidence base on effective digital inclusion interventions. It is also designed to support best practice with the ambition to scale and replicate successful activities across England to increase digital participation.
14 August – Starlink suddenly replaced its ‘Pause Mode’ broadband service for subscribers which allowed users to stop and restart the service at no additional cost to a new ‘Standby Mode’ which costs an extra £4.50 per month. The Pause Mode was one of the most popular service functions by customers, but regrettably Starlink informed consumers of an ‘upgrade’ that has switched the Pause Mode to Standby Mode.
15 August – BDUK announced it will be carrying out a number of studies to evaluate the delivery, performance and value of its various government funded mobile and broadband roll-out programme, i.e. Project Gigabit, Shared Rural Network, and GigaHubs. The first evaluation plans can be found here.
15 August – Plusnet (part of the BT Group), published its latest accounts up to 31 March 2025. It reported that its annual turnover fell by -15% to reach £343m down from £402m in the previous year and cut more than 100 jobs. Its broadband base declined by 3% partly due to its strategic decision not to offer its own VoIP service alongside full fibre broadband.
29 August – SRN announced that at the end of August 75 4G mobile masts have been activated with 37 in Wales, 19 in Scotland, and 19 in England.
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