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Communications provider and UK network builder Exascale, which has deployed their own gigabit speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to a few thousand premises in part of Telford and Wrekin, has quietly launched a more consumer focused broadband brand that will sell packages via several fibre networks.

The change means that Exascale’s main website has recently switched its focus to sell residential broadband packages, while business and wholesale connections have been separated into their own section. Previously there wasn’t much distinction and the ISP largely adopted more of an overall focus on business connectivity, despite selling some consumer-grade broadband packages.

At present the consumer pricing on their website still only reflects their own-built full fibre (on-net) network. This is priced from £25.99 per month on a 24-month term for symmetric speeds of 50Mbps (inc. free installation, WiFi 6 mesh router and unlimited usage), which rises to £48.99 per month for their top 1000Mbps package. But as above, the coverage of their on-net fibre is very limited.

The good news is that Exascale’s consumer broadband service will shortly be expanded to include packages on several additional full fibre networks, including Openreach, CityFibre (following a recent agreement) and Gigaclear. The online order journey and pricing (yet to be finalised) for these should go live sometime during January 2026, but Exascale hasn’t yet confirmed an exact date to ISPreview.

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The UK Space Agency (UKSA) has reportedly invited interested suppliers, such as Starlink, to engage on the possibility of harnessing Direct to Device (DtD) based signals from broadband satellites to help resolve coverage gaps in the Government’s massively late and over-budget 4G based Emergency Service Network (ESN); currently being delivered by EE (BT).

Just to recap. The emergency services (police, fire etc.) were supposed to have moved away from the old Motorola-owned Airwave network by now, which harnessed TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) technology. The old network is slow (dialup / ISDN like data speeds) and expensive, although it does deliver strong voice coverage (99%+ geographic reach).

The high cost and limited capabilities of Airwave are often highlighted as two of the main reasons why the previous UK government, in 2015, decided to replace it with a 4G alternative (ESN) – the first country to do so. The Home Office originally expected that emergency services could start using the ESN in September 2017, allowing Airwave to be replaced by December 2019, but the contract ended up being billions of pounds over budget and years behind schedule due to a mix of technical problems, legal (competition) disputes and development delays (here).

Most of the problems with the ESN stemmed from issues with its software and hardware, rather than the network side. But at the same time it’s still recognised that EE’s 4G network struggles to reach every single location within the UK, and this is potentially one area where the new generation of broadband satellites could help.

Over the past few years’ we’ve reported on various developments in the related Direct to Device (DtD) market, which often allows satellites in space to link with unmodified Smartphones on the ground for limited but useful communication (voice/text), data and general roaming / coverage improvements (here).

The most mature of these is Starlink’s (SpaceX) Direct to Cell (DtC) service, which has already been adopted by O2 in the UK (O2 Satellite will launch in early 2026). But Vodafone has separately teamed-up with AST Space Mobile to deliver a similar solution and BT (EE) are working with Starlink on a rural broadband solution (here), albeit not yet DtC. On top of that, Amazon’s Leo project is also set to deliver mobile connectivity in the near future.

Suffice to say that it would make perfect sense for the government to be exploring how satellite based mobile connectivity could also be used to help complement the ESN and potentially fill in any coverage gaps, which is exactly what the Telegraph (paywall) reports is now being explored by the UKSA.

We use the word complement above, rather than replace, because at the end of 2024 EE secured a 7-year extension – worth £1.29bn – to their 4G based ESN network contract until 2032 (here); this includes the option of a 1-year extension to that. We think it would also be unlikely for the UK government to place the national security of ESN connectivity totally in the hands of a foreign satellite operator.

Meanwhile, the Home Office still doesn’t expect the ESN to be fully operational until 2029, and the total predicted cost of the project has already more than doubled from an original £6.2bn estimate to £14bn. The bigger question may thus be whether or not the hardware and software side of the ESN can be adapted in time to work effectively alongside satellite connectivity.

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Internet provider Virgin Media (O2) has kindly furnished ISPreview with some general traffic stats from their fixed broadband network over the festive period, which for example reveals that Christmas Day internet traffic was up 11% on last year (broadly in line with traffic growth generally). But compared to an average Thursday in 2025, traffic was up by 22%.

In terms of New Year’s Eve, Virgin Media reported that fixed broadband traffic was up 10% from last year and that’s also 12% higher than the average Wednesday in 2025. Sadly, the provider wasn’t yet able to reveal any data on mobile (4G, 5G) traffic over the same period.

The above stats come shortly after VMO2 revealed how they’d seen an 8% rise in broadband usage (down slightly from a rise of 8.1% in 2024) and an 18% rise in mobile traffic through the past year (up from 9%) – driven by growing use of AI, live sports streaming and major game releases (here); we also got some other network insights just a few days after that (here).

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The Vice President of Starlink Engineering for SpaceX, Michael Nicolls, has revealed that they’re going to move all of the broadband satellites they currently have in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at around 550km above the planet to c.480km (impacting roughly 4,400 satellites) over the course of 2026.

According to Nicolls, the “significant reconfiguration” of Starlink’s satellite constellation is a change that is “focused on increasing space safety” and is being “tightly coordinated with other operators, regulators, and USSPACECOM.” Just for context. Starlink currently has around 9,400 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (c.5,900 are v2 / V2 Mini) – mostly at altitudes of c.500-600km.

Residential customers in the UK usually pay from £55 a month for the ‘Residential Lite’ unlimited data plan directly from Starlink (kit price may vary due to different offers), which promises downloads of up to 250Mbps (175Mbps average) and uploads of c.15-35Mbps. Faster packages exist at greater cost, while cheaper, albeit more restrictive (data capped), options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £50 per month for 50 GigaBytes of data).

However, Starlink is no longer the only game in LEO town, with orbital space around the Earth fast becoming increasingly packed at lower altitudes and the risk from collisions rising. The move to shift a significant portion of Starlink’s constellation into an even lower orbit is thus intended to mitigate against some of the risks the current environment could create.

Michael Nicolls said (X):

“Lowering the satellites results in condensing Starlink orbits, and will increase space safety in several ways. As solar mininum approaches, atmospheric density decreases which means the ballistic decay time at any given altitude increases – lowering will mean a >80% reduction in ballistic decay time in solar minimum, or 4+ years reduced to a few months. Correspondingly, the number of debris objects and planned satellite constellations is significantly lower below 500km, reducing the aggregate likelihood of collision.

Starlink satellites have extremely high reliability, with only 2 dead satellites in its fleet of over 9000 operational satellites. Nevertheless, if a satellite does fail on orbit, we want it to deorbit as quickly as possible. These actions will further improve the safety of the constellation, particularly with difficult to control risks such as uncoordinated manoeuvres and launches by other satellite operators.”

One small side note is on that “extremely high reliability” claim is with how it overlooks the satellites that were lost in other ways, such as during launch or early orbit insertion. But none of this should be confused with the many others that have also been decommissioned as part of a regular routine (they’re only designed to last for a few years before being sent to burn up in the atmosphere).

The announcement doesn’t mention it, but shifting so many satellites into a lower orbit could also deliver a small improvement in network latency.

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Broadband provider BT (EE) has been criticised by a resident of the remote Outer Hebrides (Scotland) island of Scalpay after they found that the Battery Backup (BBU) device, which the ISP provided for their internet and Digital Voice (phone) service, failed to work in two out of three recent power cuts. A bit of a problem as the house also gets no mobile signal.

The need for a BBU is relevant because the industry is now in the final process of retiring legacy phone services (PSTN/WLR) by 31st January 2027 (details). But one key advantage of the old method was that copper phone lines could be powered from an exchange, thus BBU’s were not usually required. Sadly this is not possible with most modern internet-based digital phone equivalents (especially if fibre optic FTTP lines are involved as these cannot carry electricity).

Internet and phone providers like BT thus optionally provide a BBU to “vulnerable customers” (usually for free) who have taken their IP-based Digital Voice (phone) services. The BBU is designed to ensure that the customer’s router and optical modem (ONT) still works when there’s a power cut, which means they’re able to make an emergency call using an existing handset. Regular customers can also get one of these, albeit for an additional cost.

However, in the aforementioned case on Scalpay, Jane Roberts and her husband said (Stornoway Gazette): “There have been three power cuts recently and the broadband has only worked in one of them. It’s leaving no communication for emergency services … BT and their new digital voice system are going to be responsible for possible fatalities in the future when they are predicting everyone will be on it by the end of 2027.”

According to Jane, BT’s BBU system failed during the first power cut, had worked during the second power cut – on Boxing Day – and then failed again on the third, which came just 20 minutes after the second power cut. We assume the system in this case is setup correctly, since it did at least work on one of those occasions, but it’s hard to tell with so little detail and only some very anecdotal feedback from one user.

A BT spokesperson said:

“UK landline providers are switching from analogue to digital services, as the old technology is increasingly unreliable and no longer fit for purpose.

We recognise the concerns raised and encourage any customers experiencing issues to contact us directly so we can review their setup and provide a tailored solution. At BT, keeping customers connected is our top priority and we remain committed to supporting vulnerable customers through the switch.”

Sadly, the article doesn’t provide any solid details to help us examine the circumstances around this case, such as precisely which BBU unit Jane has (BT supply two different solutions), what her setup looks like or how long the power cuts lasted etc. BT’s latest BBU Plus kit (pictured) launched last year alongside other providers (Vodafone, Zen Internet and KCOM) and is designed to last for 4 hours (here), before going into an idle mode that reserves just enough power for an emergency call.

The article suggests that Jane had switched to the new Digital Voice service late last year, and so we assume her home would have been provided with the latest BBU Plus kit. But obviously if any of the power cuts lasted longer than 4 hours then that might become a problem. In addition, if any of those power cuts also impacted BT / Openreach’s wider network, then it wouldn’t matter if the BBU itself was working or not as there’d be no connectivity either way (not even an old legacy phone would have worked in that circumstance).

Suffice to say that more detail and context is required in order to properly assess what actually caused the system not to work, which is important because many other people will be installing similar systems and expecting it to work.

In the meantime, consumers can of course optionally buy a larger portable power station [affiliate link] online for more money, but we recommend only getting one that uses a LiFePO4 battery, as they last longer and are better at holding a charge. However, if you have deeper pockets and also want to save money on your electricity bills, then a whole-home solution (e.g. GivEnergy, Tesla Powerwall etc.) that charges up at cheaper off-peak rates could be another option, but the latter does tend to cost several thousand pounds.

Otherwise, the move away from the old legacy phone network is a somewhat unavoidable change, due both to the roll-out of full fibre connections and the fact that the legacy phone network is now rapidly reaching “end of life“; it’s already becoming unreliable and sourcing replacement hardware when parts fail is difficult. Suffice to say that the change isn’t going to be reversed, so it’s now much more important to consider having a backup.

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ISPreview has today published our biannual H2 – 2025 summary of fixed broadband coverage, which reveals that “full fibre” (FTTP) ISP networks have grown to reach 81.89% of UK premises (up from 78.06% in H1) and 89.6% are within reach of “gigabit” 1000Mbps+ speeds (up from 87.84%) – close to the major milestone of 90%. Read on to see details for England, Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland.

All the new gigabit-capable network (1000Mbps+ or 1Gbps+) coverage added during the second half of 2025 has come from Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based networks via Openreach (BT), nexfibre (Virgin Media), CityFibre, Netomnia (Brsk, YouFibre), Grain and a few other alternative networks (Summary of UK Full Fibre Builds). But the overall deployment pace has slowed further this year due to wider market pressures.

The reason why “gigabit” coverage is currently still higher than “full fibre” (FTTP) is down to the millions of premises that continue to be covered by Virgin Media’s older Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network, which uses gigabit-capable DOCSIS 3.1 technology via a Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network (there’s a lot of overbuild with FTTP in urban areas). This too will be upgraded to FTTP by 2028, but that’s a slow process.

In addition, most of the progress on gigabit-capable builds seen during 2025 is still down to private investment (commercial builds have already delivered the first 80%+ of gigabit cover), often with only a little support from the Government’s various schemes. But the Project Gigabit scheme, and its subsidised rollout contracts with various different suppliers, are having an impact on this, albeit primarily via the hardest to reach premises (e.g. rural) that typically take longer to cover.

H2 2025 Broadband Coverage Figures

Listed below is the latest independent modelling from Thinkbroadband to the end of December 2025 (H2 – 2025). We should point out that the figure for ‘Under 10Mbps‘ doesn’t include any mobile (4G/5G) coverage (we only looked at fixed line services), which plays a part in the official Universal Service Obligation (USO) but isn’t included in TBB’s mapping. Sadly, it’s incredibly difficult to do an accurate model for mobile networks, especially in terms of a specific performance level.

Fixed Broadband Network Availability H2 – 2025

NOTE: It’s very important to remember that Government / political coverage targets, like the previous “85%” for gigabit by 2025, reflect a national average – this can of course be better or worse for some areas (e.g. some counties may achieve higher coverage, while others could be below that).

Take note that each region (Scotland, Wales etc.) may also have its own policy and targets, which will feed into the central UK coverage figure. Furthermore, it’s worth highlighting how much of an impact newer alternative networks (altnets) are having on all this – excluding coverage by Openreach, KCOM (Hull) and Virgin Media.

Altnets were found to have covered 44.79% of the UK with FTTP by the end of H2 2025 (up from 42.26% in H1). This breaks down as 47.36% in England (up from 44.56%), just 20.87% in Wales (up from 18.82%), 34.81% in Scotland (up from 33.95%) and 41.65% in Northern Ireland (up from 41.08%). But the overall coverage improvement delivered from this will be reduced due to overbuild between so many networks, particularly in urban areas.

As stated earlier, this data is a modelled estimate, not least because it won’t always reflect the very latest real-world position of ever single network. But it’s still one of the best and most up-to-date gauges that we have for checking against official claims (Ofcom’s own data tends to many months behind the latest developments, so TBB’s data is usually more current).

Solutions for Slow Broadband Areas

Finally, those still stuck in sub-10Mbps speed areas will, at least for now, be left with little option but to try harnessing the flawed 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO) via BT (UK-wide) or KCOM (Hull-only). Many of those who have pursued the USO say they were offered a mobile broadband (4G or 5G) connection via EE, but those considered “delivered” under the USO itself usually get full fibre (FTTP) lines.

However, the reality is that some people will find they live in areas where not even the USO can cover the colossal upgrade costs of getting FTTP (here and here). The previous government was in the process of examining support options for remote premises and had also been preparing to review the broadband USO (here), which may bring some changes in the future (the Labour Party previously called for a 30Mbps USO). But we haven’t seen any solid updates on this since 2024.

Failing that, consumers could either try waiting to see if the problem gets resolved or consider exploring the option of a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based satellite service (Starlink is good, and they will be joined by Amazon’s Leo network in 2026). We would also recommend that consumers check via Three UK / Vodafone and O2 (VMO2) to see if any of those deliver better 4G or 5G mobile coverage than EE in your area (ideally by conducting your own tests, since official coverage maps are fairly useless) – see our guide to external antennas.

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The UK government has posted a Project Gigabit modification for Openreach’s £61.3m (public subsidy) contract to extend the reach of their full fibre (FTTP) based gigabit broadband network across Essex and North East England. This increases the value by £610,393 to £61.92m and will now reach an additional 269 premises in remote rural areas (total target now 24,707 premises).

Just to remind. Project Gigabit’s contracts are not static and their scope, as well as committed levels of public funding, can change over time for a number of different reasons (informed by regular ‘Open Market Reviews’ of existing UK deployment plans). For example, commercial operators may expand or reduce their roll-out plans in the same region, which can reduce or grow the scope for public investment within those same contracted areas.

The contracted operator could also find the deployment to be more expensive, or possibly even cheaper, than previously envisaged. Such adjustments may occur due to changes in build costs and interest rates / inflation, as well as any unexpected obstacles to street works or greater efficiencies of build than planned or expected. Suffice to say, there can be various reasons why the contracted scope of related builds and the level of allocated public funding may change over time.

In this case, the government (DSIT) have merely stated that “additional scope” has been added to Openreach’s Type C (Call Off 5) roll-out contract (first awarded Jan 2025) for the hardest-to-reach parts of Essex and North East England, which means that the “awarded premises have increased (rescoped) by 269“. This has pushed the contract value higher by £610,393 (roughly £2.27k per premises added).

The areas covered by Type C (Cross-Regional) contracts typically reflect locations where no or no appropriate market interest had previously been expressed before to the Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency, or areas that have been descoped or terminated from a prior procurement (i.e. there was a lack of market interest in upgrading them). Such areas are often skipped due to being too expensive (difficult) for smaller suppliers to tackle.

Clearly, in this case, Openreach has identified an ability to reach more premises with their contracted roll-out than previously planned. We don’t currently know whether this represents the addition of a specific community (communities) or whether it’s just a broader increase found across multiple locations. The original roll-out map has yet to be updated for the Call Off 5 changes:

Openreach Call Off 5 Gigabit Broadband Rollout Map (Dec 2024)

The new service, once live, can be ordered via various ISPs, such as BT, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Vodafone and many more (Openreach FTTP ISP Choices) – it is not currently an automatic upgrade, although some providers have started to do free automatic upgrades as older copper-based services and lines are slowly withdrawn.

The roll-out phase of the above contract is set to take another 2-3 years, although the contract itself runs until 30th September 2037; this includes clawback provisions that may return some of the public money that has been invested to conduct the build.

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The UK Government has published their annual New Year Honours List for 2026, which this time saw Matt Agar, Strategy Director for the government’s Building Digital UK agency within DSIT, being named an “Officer of the Order of the British Empire” for “services to Digital Infrastructure and Broadband“.

The King’s New Year Honours list is said to recognise the achievements and public service of people across the UK, from all walks of life. Anyone can nominate someone for an honour, and nominees are then “checked by various government departments to make sure they’re suitable for an honour” (this may include checks by HMRC) and an honour’s committee will also review the nominations.

So far as we could see, Matt seems to be the only one from the broadband and mobile sector to receive an honour this year. In case anybody has forgotten, BDUK has responsibility for delivering gigabit broadband and better mobile connectivity across the nation (e.g. the £5bn Project Gigabit scheme) and Matt has long played a key role in helping to run it.

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Rochdale-based UK broadband ISP Zen Internet has this morning revealed that average network traffic across their service rose by 21% during 2025, with the highest peak of data usage being set on 11th November 2025 (22% above last year’s peak) – largely driven by live football streaming (this often dominated peak demand).

What distinguishes 2025 is not the existence of such peaks, but how frequently they now occur on top of sustained demand. Zen highlighted how 2025 saw a succession of new network highs with peak traffic up 3% on 2024’s highest peak in February, 9% in March, and 11.5% in April, before rising sharply again in the autumn.

As above, live sport streaming platforms continue to dominate peak demand, with Amazon (Prime Video) traffic showing significant spikes, reaching 85% above a normal average evening on 4th November – during a big football event (Liverpool vs Real Madrid). The UEFA Champions League fixtures in February, March, April, and November all coincided with new peak records, while the Lionesses’ Euros final on 27th July drove an 11% increase in total network traffic compared with the previous day.

Interestingly, video gaming and software releases were described as being “less frequent, short-term contributors” to traffic peaks in 2025. But when they occurred, they generated sharp, time-limited surges on Zen’s network. A surprise game release in April 2025 prompted a noticeable daytime and evening uplift, while beta tests and major updates later in the year also produced clear spikes.

Apple traffic stood out in September 2025, jumping 900%, consistent with a major operating system (iOS) rollout, highlighting how large-scale software distribution can briefly place significant additional demand on the network without altering the underlying baseline trend.

Zen also notes that major global news events were “less likely to create dramatic standalone spikes” than in previous years, suggesting that news consumption is now embedded within everyday internet use. However, select moments still drove measurable increases, such as the US Presidential inauguration in January and the death of Pope Francis in April, which coincided with higher-than-normal traffic to trusted public service platforms such as the BBC. But Zen provided no solid data to substantiate these statements.

John Lyons, Technology Director at Zen, said:

“What this year shows very clearly is that high demand is no longer confined to isolated moments, but is now underpinned by sustained growth. We’re seeing sustained growth in baseline usage alongside repeated record peaks, which requires us to work hard to stay ahead of our growing customer demands. As Zen turns 30, continuing to invest in capacity and resilience is critical to making sure customers experience a reliable service, particularly as demand keeps rising.”

In terms of how all this compares with the wider UK market. Ofcom recently reported that the average monthly data usage per fixed broadband connection is now 583GB (GigaBytes) across “all technologies” (up from 531GB last year), which rises to an average of 738GB for full-fibre connections (oddly this was actually down a bit from 766GB).

However, it’s worth remembering that internet providers use sophisticated Content Delivery Networks (CDN) and systems to help manage the load from big online events, which caches popular content closer in the network to end-users (i.e. improves performance without adding network strain). This in turn lowers the provider’s impact on external links and helps to keep costs down.

Demand for data is of course constantly rising and home broadband connections are forever getting faster, thus new peaks of usage are being set all the time by every ISP. As a side note, Virgin Media and O2 recently reported that they saw an 8% rise in broadband usage (down from 8.1% in 2024) and an 18% rise in mobile traffic through the year (up from 9%) – driven by growing use of AI, live sports and major game releases.

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ISPreview has today published our final biannual study of the United Kingdom’s broadband download and upload speeds for 2025, which reveals how the performance of the fastest nationally available fixed line ISPs, mobile network operators and Starlink (satellite) services has changed since H1 (mid-year).

The results in this report stem from web-based speed testing by consumers and are thus inevitably impacted by a number of factors, such as the rising coverage of faster networks (e.g. full fibre and 5G) and the level of take-up by customers. As a result it helps to understand any key changes in network deployments over the same sort of period, which is shown below using the latest Connected Nations 2025 data from Ofcom.

In terms of fixed lines, the primary coverage improvements have continued to come from full fibre broadband networks (Summary of UK FTTP Builds), although ongoing market pressures (high build costs, high interest rates, fierce competition etc.) are continuing to result in many alternative operators (altnets) suffering job losses and a slowdown in their deployments. But the Openreach, Netomnia and others have kept up a good pace.

Full fibre networks are now also the sole driving force behind the rise in gigabit-capable coverage, which continues to be predominantly fuelled by commercial roll-outs in urban areas. Speaking of which, gigabit coverage passed the Government’s first target (85%) under their £5bn Project Gigabit programme earlier this year (focused on the final c.10-20% of poorly served rural premises) and is now aiming to hit c.99% coverage by 2032 (delayed from the original 2030 target – here).

Finally, in terms of mobile networks, there have been further improvements in 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) coverage. Most of this stems from commercial investment, although the industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project did make good progress on boosting geographic 4G coverage (here).

Fastest Major Fixed Broadband ISPs (H2 vs H1 2025)

The data in this report has been gathered from Thinkbroadband’s independent database of speedtests (inc. ISPreview’s Broadband Speedtest). But the table below only includes the largest and most established independent ISPs with strong national availability, although there is a separate table for smaller providers (inc. some altnets) on page 2 – these are difficult to include because such providers don’t produce much test data (fewer users).

Naturally, there are caveats to consider with speedtest based studies like this, not least because the results tend to be more reflective of take-up than network availability. For example, some ISPs may have a much larger proportion of customers on slower copper-based lines (ADSL or FTTC), which can weigh against those on faster FTTP services with the same provider (i.e. pulling average speeds down). The opposite can also be true.

Average Download Speeds – Top 8

Average Upload Speeds – Top 8

Overall, the average download speed of the top national providers was 91.28Mbps (up from 90.12Mbps) and the average upload speed hit 21.21Mbps (down from 21.61Mbps), which suggests that very little changed across the major national providers over the last half of the year. But we did see a curiously large performance slide at EE and the reverse at Vodafone.

Now flick over to page 2 to continue this summary and see how the fastest satellite (starlink), mobile operators and smaller ISPs all performed.