New customers looking to join broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2) should take note that they’ve today launched their Winter Sale, which significantly slashes some of their broadband and TV bundle prices. For example, Virgin’s top 2Gbps package has been reduced in price to just £55 per month on an 18-month minimum term.

The discounted broadband plans, which include a wireless router and free setup, generally start at £23.50 per month for a 132Mbps service (£54 after 18-months), before rising to £27 for 362Mbps (£66), £33 for 516Mbps (£72) and £39 for 1130Mbps (£78). A 2Gbps (200Mbps) tier also exists in nexfibre areas, which has been cut to just £55 (£84); people in nextfibre areas can also pay a bit more for symmetric speeds, if they so wish.

Virgin Media’s winter sale deals are available from today and will probably end in the not-too-distant future (no end date was specified, but these things tend to change every 1-3 weeks). The provider also has various discounts running on their TV and mobile (O2) bundles.

Mobile and broadband operator Sure recently confirmed that their roll-out of full fibre (FTTP) broadband on the English Channel Island of Guernsey had now reached 75% of premises (with take-up of 15,000 premises), which puts them on-track to complete the build phase by the end of 2025. Many customers are also being given free speed boosts as part of the upgrade.

Just to recap. Sure is working alongside the States of Guernsey on a joint £37.5m project (£12.5m of public investment) to build a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across the whole of Guernsey (30,000+ premises) by the end of 2026 (end of 2025 for build completion and 2026 for copper retirement). The previous update in May 2024 revealed that Sure had covered 18,000 premises (inc. 10,000 customers), which was up from 9,000 a year earlier (credits to the BBC News for the latest stats). Customers can order packages via Sure, JT and Airtel.

As part of this, Sure recently announced that thousands of their new and existing customers would also “enjoy significant speed increases this winter” when their fibre plans are upgraded “free of charge“. The upgrades, which will see some customers being boosted to speeds of up to 500Mbps, started this month and are due to be completed in January 2025.

For example, customers on Sure’s Basic Fibre will get a 50% speed uplift to 75Mbps, with those on Essential Fibre doubling their current 75Mbps speed to 150Mbps. Meanwhile, customers on Sure’s fastest Gigabit, Hyperfast and Hyperfast Plus packages will remain on their current speeds but will see a reduction in their monthly bill. Savings will be up to £34 per month, equating to £408 per year.

Mike Fawkner-Corbett, Acting Chief Commercial Officer at Sure, said:

“Our fibre network has been developed for amazing speeds, as the technology continues to advance it is crucial that we provide our customers with the best possible service. This upgrade demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that islanders have access to fast, reliable broadband that can meet their growing digital needs.

We want to enhance the customer experience – we’ve listened and know our customers want faster speeds, better value, and seamless WiFi everywhere in their home. That is why we are improving our plans and expanding what customers get when they sign up to fibre with Sure.”

Islanders currently considering a switch to Sure’s fibre or standard broadband packages will also receive their “hassle-free broadband offer” when they sign up or re-sign their contract:

➤ A free professional installation
➤ A free WiFi health-check with the Home Tech Team (valued at £45)
➤ A free router (valued at £108)
➤ A free mesh WiFi extender (valued at £72)

Once again, as we reach the end of 2024, it’s time for ISPreview to take our usual biannual look back to see how the broadband download and upload speeds have changed across the fastest nationally available UK fixed line ISPs, mobile network operators and Starlink (satellite) services. But this time around we’ve made a few changes.

The results in this report stem from consumer web-based speed testing 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. Due to this it helps to understand any key changes in network deployments since the start of 2024 (Ofcom’s Connected Nations data).

In terms of fixed line broadband connectivity, the primary coverage improvements have continued to come from Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks (Summary of Full Fibre Build Progress), which is despite quite a few alternative operators suffering job losses and a slowdown in their builds due to ongoing market pressures (i.e. rising build costs, high interest rates, fierce competition etc.).

Full fibre networks are currently the sole driving force behind the rise in gigabit-capable coverage, which continues to be fuelled by commercial roll-outs in urban areas and has already passed the Government’s first target (85%) under their £5bn Project Gigabit programme (this mainly focuses on the final c.10-20% of harder to reach rural premises) – this is now aiming to hit “at least” 99% (“nationwide“) cover by 2030.

Finally, in terms of mobile networks, there have been some improvements in 4G and 5G (mobile broadband) coverage, but they remain quite small to modest. Nevertheless, the industry-led £1bn Shared Rural Network (SRN) project has made a little progress on boosting geographic 4G coverage and aims to cover 95% of the UK – from at least one operator – by the end of 2025. By comparison, 5G is primarily being driven by commercial builds.

Fastest Major Fixed Broadband ISPs (H2 vs H1 2024)

The data in this report has been gathered from Thinkbroadband’s independent speedtest database (inc. ISPreview’s Broadband Speedtest). The table only includes the largest and most established independent ISPs with strong national availability, but there is a separate table for smaller alternative networks on page 2 – these are difficult to include because they aren’t yet available to the majority of premises and 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 (ADSL or FTTC) lines, which can weigh against anybody on faster FTTP packages with the same provider (i.e. pulling average speeds down). The opposite can also be true.

However, the big change this time is that we’ve switched from using a mathematical “mean” to a “median” average, which tends to be more reflective of real-world speeds. But this does mean that we lose connection to our historical trends data. All of the tables in this report are thus now using median values, including the previous H1 2024 results.

Average Download Speeds – Top 8

Average Upload Speeds – Top 8

Overall, the average download speed of the top national providers was 76.56Mbps (up from 70.95Mbps) and the average upload speed hit 15.88Mbps (up from 14.77Mbps).

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the launch of their new 2Gbps services and a symmetric speeds add-on during 2024, Virgin Media is the provider that saw some of the biggest improvements in both download and upload speeds this time around. But in a rare change, we also saw a similarly positive improvement from TalkTalk. On the flip side, Plusnet suffered an unexpected decline.

Satellites

We’ve also been keeping track of the results for SpaceX’s satellite based Starlink broadband service. Sadly, not enough data exists to include other satellite platforms or providers, but that may change in the future. Otherwise, Starlink’s download performance appears to have fallen during the last half of 2024 and it’s a similar story for their upload performance, but the declines are small to modest.

Now flick over to page 2 to see how the fastest full fibre alternative network (altnet) ISPs and mobile operators performed.

Once again we’re ending 2024 by taking a look back to see how the United Kingdom’s position, at least in terms of the top 50 fastest countries for both fixed broadband ISP and mobile (4G, 5G) data speeds, has changed since 2023. Overall, the UK fell from 51st to 53rd for mobile and jumped from 56th to 44th for fixed lines.

The following report was created by harnessing data from Ookla’s popular Speedtest.net service for benchmarking internet connections around the world, which admittedly does have its caveats. For example, the data can be impacted by other aspects of the connection (e.g. slow Wi-Fi, local network congestion, the performance of speedtest.net’s own servers and consumer package choice), but these issues are shared by all of the countries.

However, the main differentiator for speeds between countries tends to stem from the balance between network availability and the take-up of faster connection types. For example, countries with a high coverage of gigabit-capable broadband networks (FTTP, DOCSIS 3.1 – 4.0 etc.) or strong 5G mobile services (ideally with plenty of radio spectrum for them to harness) will naturally rank highest in the table.

In terms of the UK, we’ve seen a strong and continuous improvement in the availability of both faster fixed and mobile networks. For example, Ofcom recently revealed (here) that 1Gbps capable fixed gigabit broadband networks had reached 84% of premises (up from 78% last year), which falls to 69% when only looking at full fibre / FTTP lines (up from 57%).

As for 5G mobile, it is now available from at least one MNO (operator) in the vicinity of around 90-95% of UK premises (up from 85-93% last year) or 61-79% when looking at outside areas with availability from all operators combined.

Top 50 Fastest Countries for Broadband in 2024

The data below reveals that fixed line broadband and mobile speeds have continued to improve across the world. But despite some noted improvements in 5G coverage, other countries still seem able to improve their real-world mobile performance at a faster or similar pace. On the flip side, the UK has seen its first ranking improvement for fixed line performance in several years, which reflects the growing coverage and take-up of full fibre lines.

We’ve summarised some of the key changes below.

UK Fixed & Mobile Speeds vs The World (2024)

Otherwise, the following tables show how the countries compare, using only download speed as the key measure, across the top 50 countries.

Sadly, Ookla doesn’t make it easy to do the same table for uploads or latency.

Fastest 50 Countries for Fixed Broadband Speed (DL) in 2024

Fastest 50 Countries for Mobile Speed (DL) in 2024

The Carmarthenshire County Council (CCC) in Wales has signed a new agreement that will allow rural ISP Voneus to install their fixed wireless gigabit broadband network equipment on top of local street lighting columns, which will make it easier for them to expand into the county’s poorly served rural communities.

The announcement notes that the provider will use this to send its wireless signal from “column to column … meaning long distances can be traveled into more rural areas“. This will almost certainly adopt the same approach as we’ve seen elsewhere (here), which involved the use of Cambium Networks’ 60GHz cnWave (Terragraph) wireless network technology.

At present there are no details on the provider’s future roll-out plan for the county and so it’s difficult to know how many premises will benefit from this agreement or where, although it’s worth noting that Openreach’s full fibre (FTTP) lines have already reached around two thirds of the entire county. But Voneus’ wireless network doesn’t require masses of new trenching, making it fairly quick and less disruptive to deploy.

Customers of the new wireless network can currently expect to pay from £25.99 per month (normally £38.99) for symmetric speeds of 250Mbps (inc. free router and installation) on a 24-month minimum term, which rises to £49.99 for 900Mbps (normally £74.99). The first month of service is also being offered for free.

Ilan Scorah, Director of Strategy and Planning at Voneus, said:

“Our partnership with Carmarthenshire County Council is another significant milestone for Voneus helping broadband connectivity in rural Carmarthenshire, where connectivity has often been a challenge. Strengthening our partnerships with local authorities helps lead the way for better digital access which we know can make a substantial difference in fostering economic growth, enhancing educational opportunities, and improving overall quality of life.”

Cllr Hazel Evans said:

“I am thrilled to have this new agreement with Voneus in place. It’s a positive step towards bridging the digital divide in the harder to reach rural areas of the county. Building working relationships to better the services of residents and businesses in Carmarthenshire is integral to the region and I hope that we can continue to collaborate with providers to improve broadband connectivity in our rural communities.”

However, it’s worth noting that Voneus are currently going through a bit of a difficult period, which this month saw them drop out of the Government’s £12m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for Mid West Shropshire (here) and suffer a spate of complaints about their legacy network (here). But the operator has still been pulling in tens of millions in fresh investment from Global Connectivity PLC via Rural Broadband Solutions Holdings Limited (RBSHL).

Network testing firm Ookla (i.e. Speedtest.net, Downdetector.co.uk) has used its crowdsourced data to examine how 5G mobile (mobile broadband) networks performed across a selection of major world cities, including London in the UK, during last year’s New Year’s Eve (Dec 2023) celebrations.

The study essentially analysed how 5G networks coped with the “surge in demand and change in traffic patterns” at New Year, across a selection of major cities featuring some of the largest New Year celebrations around the globe. As part of this, they focused in on median performance alongside the slowest 10th percentile, in order to evaluate the spread of performance from the median user to those experiencing more challenging network conditions.

Firstly, in terms of upload speed (this is most important when sharing social media content from big events), half the cities in their analysis recorded 10th percentile upload performance of less than 1Mbps, with speeds ranging from 0.30Mbps in Berlin, to 6.09Mbps in Dubai. London delivered a median average upload speed of 9.42Mbps, while those in the slowest 10% suffered 0.77Mbps.

It was a similar picture for New Year revellers based on download speeds and latency, albeit with far better overall performance. Dubai topped the table with a median download of 493.55Mbps and a 10th percentile score of 97.52Mbps, while Bangkok came last with a median of 63.25Mbps and a 10th percentile of 2.72Mbps. By comparison, London delivered a mid-table median of 109.12Mbps and a 10th percentile of 12Mbps.

As for latency (milliseconds), the fastest was Rio de Janeiro with a median of 25ms and a 10th percentile of 54ms, while the slowest was Tokyo on a median of 45ms and a 10th percentile of 64ms. Sadly, London was the 2nd slowest on a median of 42ms and a dramatically worse 10th percentile of 116ms (the slowest 10th percentile city was Sydney on 232ms).

The results are something that some people may find interesting, while also helping to highlight areas where mobile network operators may need to invest. But there aren’t too many earth-shattering revelations above, and it would have been more useful had Ookla released this back in January 2024, when the data was still fairly current and thus more reflective.

London focused UK broadband ISP G.Network, which has deployed a Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network across 361,000 “connectable” premises in parts of London (here), has today begun a new discount that cuts the price of their 300Mbps (100Mbps upload) package to just £20 per month on a 24-month term (£30 thereafter).

The special price, which will be available to order until 4th February 2025, also includes free installation, unlimited usage, a pledge of no mid-contract price hikes, an included router and free parental controls.

New residential customers can sometimes also get up to £150 towards any early termination charges payable when ending their existing broadband agreement before the end of their minimum term. But at the time of writing, we aren’t sure if this applies to the new offer (will update late this morning).

The North Yorkshire Council (NYC) has called on the UK government to help it find funding and solutions for the remaining 11,000 properties in the county that, once existing roll-outs of gigabit-capable broadband ISP networks have completed, will likely still be left without access to “decent internet connections“.

The original state-aid backed Superfast North Yorkshire (SFNY) project, which was supported by £100m of investment (£85m from public sources) and completed a few months ago (here), previously helped more than 200,000 extra premises to access faster broadband speeds via a mix of different technologies (FTTC, FTTP, Fixed Wireless etc.) and operators (Openreach and Quickline).

Since then Quickline has scooped up the £73.5m (state aid) Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for North Yorkshire (Lot 31), which over the next few years will aim to extend their 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network to reach an additional 36,300 premises in hard-to-reach (usually rural) parts of the county. Quickline also intends to use their own complementary commercial deployment to push beyond that contracted figure.

However, despite the progress, the NYC has warned that the current projections suggest that around 11,000 premises in the county will still be left without access to “decent internet connections” (they don’t define this). At present over 95% of premises in the county can access speeds of 30Mbps+ and more than 75% can get a gigabit (1000Mbps+) broadband service, most of which have been delivered via commercial deployments.

Carl Les, Council Leader and NYnet Board Member, said:

“A great deal of work has been undertaken in recent years to ensure that there are far better connections for tens of thousands of people in North Yorkshire.

I would urge the Government to build on the work that has been already undertaken by ourselves here in the county and make sure that every home and business has access to superfast broadband connections.

We cannot have a technology divide between our urban and rural areas, which means you are disadvantaged simply by where you live for decent access to the internet.”

For its part the government’s Project Gigabit programme still has around £2bn left to be committed over the next few years. But a good chunk of that will no doubt go toward future build contracts for other parts of the UK (i.e. mostly Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with a few remaining bits of England also in the procurement pipeline), which should still leave a fair bit for allocation under a future phase of the programme.

The government are otherwise still pondering over the best approach for what remains, which will be difficult as the cost per premises passed rises disproportionately as you look toward ever more remote, sparse and thus challenging rural communities. This is why Project Gigabit’s coverage goal is usually expressed as “nationwide” or c.99% of premises by 2030, since those in the final sub-1% are often too expensive to reach via fixed lines (i.e. tiny communities can cost hundreds of thousands or even a few million pounds to serve).

The expectation is that those who living in the most challenging “Very Hard to Reach Areas” may require a more diverse mix of solutions involving fixed wireless, mobile (4G, 5G, 6G), satellites and some fibre optic lines. But precisely what approach the government will take is still the subject of much speculation, and this is only going to grow as more local authorities reach the same stage as North Yorkshire.

However, we should add that commercial deployments, such as with respect to Openreach’s future plans to reach up to 30 million premises with FTTP by 2030, could still have a positive impact in helping to bring down North Yorkshire’s 11,000 premises figure. But it’s too early to know how much of an impact, as they haven’t yet released the build plan for that phase.

News 

The acquisition was first announced back in March

Swisscom has officially received the green light for its acquisition of Vodafone Italia, following approval from both the Italian Competition Authority and the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT). With regulatory hurdles cleared, Swisscom is now set to complete the deal by the first quarter of 2025. 

Last week, the Italian Competition Authority approved the transaction, accepting a series of behavioural commitments proposed by Swisscom. These include continuing to provide wholesale services to interested operators in line with Fastweb’s current practices, as well as sharing relevant information in any public tenders where Fastweb or Vodafone Italia is the supplier. An independent trustee will oversee the implementation of these commitments for the next three years. 

MIMIT granted unconditional approval for the deal on 19 December 2024, confirming the change of control over Vodafone Italia’s spectrum licenses. This followed positive assessments from the Italian Authority for Communications and the Italian Competition Authority. 

The merger of Fastweb and Vodafone Italia is expected to deliver substantial benefits to Italian consumers and businesses by combining their strong fixed and mobile infrastructures and expanding their range of services. The merger will create Italy’s second-largest fixed-line broadband operator behind Telecom Italia (TIM). This, they said, will create around €600 million in savings through increased scale and a more efficient cost structure. As part of the transaction, Vodafone will provide some service to Swisscom for the next five years. 

With regulatory approvals now in place, Swisscom anticipates that the acquisition will be finalised in early 2025, marking a new phase for the company in the Italian telecom market. 

Keep up to date with the latest international telecoms news by subscribing to the Total Telecom daily newsletter  

Also in the news:
Equinix to buy BT’s Irish data centre business for €59m
World’s first 5G-A region in Mobile AI Era launched
Part 1: Some US broadband industry predictions as we approach 2025

Viewpoints

With the recent election behind us, there’s a noticeable shift in broadband industry sentiment.

By: Jason Malmquist, EVP, Head of Software and IT Services Business at CHR Solutions

To read the first part of this viewpoint series, click here.

Following the election, industry stakeholders are cautiously optimistic now about potential improvements in financing conditions, strategic network expansion, and the evolving competitive landscape. As we look to 2025, several key trends and challenges are emerging in the broadband industry; here are my top predictions.

1. Interest rates and cost of capital could stabilize

With political uncertainty temporarily out of the way, there’s hope for a more stable economic environment. We could see a reduction in interest rates and cost of capital. This would encourage providers to think more strategically about network investments. With financing a significant constraint over the past few years, any decrease in these costs could empower broadband companies to invest more confidently in their infrastructure.

2. Renewed focus on operational efficiency

During 2024, there were slower network buildouts and a shift toward operationalizing existing networks. Providers turned their attention to converting network passings to paying customers, a trend that’s likely to continue in 2025. While some new builds may resume, the frenetic pace of 2023 will not return. Instead, ISPs are looking at ways to optimize customer acquisition and improve ROI on existing networks. Expect to see targeted buildouts where demand is highest and a continued emphasis on streamlining operations.

3. Consolidation in the broadband space

A significant buzzword for 2025 is consolidation. Industry players and analysts are predicting that we’ll see more mergers and acquisitions this year because the convergence of high infrastructure costs and increased competition is driving many smaller providers to consider alliances or acquisitions as a way to stay competitive. Interestingly, even some co-ops—historically resistant to merging—are discussing consolidation. While co-op mergers may still be unlikely, this growing dialogue indicates that the landscape could shift as companies look for ways to scale efficiently and meet demand.

4. Starlink’s growing influence

In a surprising turn, Starlink’s influence on the broadband sector is growing. Providers are voicing more concern about the competitive threat posed by Starlink’s satellite internet service, especially with recent reports indicating that Starlink wasn’t significantly included in many broadband plans but may soon become a viable part of the ecosystem. While it’s not poised to replace traditional ISPs, Starlink’s coverage and appeal in underserved areas has made it a real competitor. In light of this, ISPs may need to reconsider their strategies, especially in rural regions where Starlink can offer a viable alternative.

5. Increased automation in service delivery

Indications are that during 2025, we will likely see a push toward greater automation in service delivery. From order processing to scheduling, the demand for seamless customer experiences is fueling automation across the board. Providers want to streamline the entire sales and onboarding process—from self-order systems to door-to-door sales tracking, shortening timelines and improving service reliability. The belief is that enhanced automation will enable ISPs to handle higher customer volumes more efficiently, driving both cost savings and customer satisfaction.

6. Rising cybersecurity threats for ISPs

Cybersecurity is no longer just a concern—it’s a critical risk that ISPs must address. Today’s cyber threats are sophisticated and coordinated, often executed by criminal organizations with ample resources and expertise. Smaller ISPs, especially in rural or underserved areas, are particularly vulnerable, as they may lack the IT infrastructure and security staff to defend against targeted attacks. These risks are significant: a security breach can lead to prolonged service outages, loss of customer data, and lasting damage to a company’s reputation. Therefore, ISPs need to prioritize cybersecurity, incorporating more advanced defenses and, ideally, dedicated teams or partnerships to mitigate these threats.

In summary …

The broadband industry will be defined by strategic expansions, a focus on efficiency, competitive pressure from satellite providers, and the urgent need for cybersecurity in 2025. It’s a complex environment, but with the right mix of innovation, automation, and strategic planning, providers can capitalize on opportunities and address the emerging challenges. By staying adaptable and vigilant, ISPs can navigate the evolving landscape and continue to deliver essential connectivity to their customers.

Click here to read Part 1: Some broadband industry predictions as we approach 2025 by Bob Bartz, VP of engineering at CHR Solutions.

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