News

ISPreview has today taken a quick look back across the UK’s market for mobile network operators in order to identify both the cheapest unlimited 4G and 5G data (broadband) plans and examine how their pricing has changed since our last survey two years ago. But some people may be surprised to find that most operators are still charging a similar amount. In this article we’ll focus on the cheapest Pay Monthly SIM-Only plans with unlimited data, which is partly because the alternative dedicated...

On 17th January 2025 Ofcom will begin enforcing a ban on mid-contract price hikes that are linked to inflation and percentage changes (here), but this doesn’t extend to many existing broadband contracts. Consumers on bigger ISPs may thus find themselves being divided between two different pricing policies, and one is going to hurt your wallet more than the other. Just to recap. Over the past few years most of the major ISPs have adopted a policy that sees them increasing the price their...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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),...