Summary
- FTTP broadband connections in the UK now exceed FTTC, reaching about 11.5 million active lines.
- Copper-based FTTC and ADSL lines are shrinking and Virgin Media’s cable base is edging down as Openreach, Virgin Media O2 and altnets expand FTTP coverage.
- Mid-range FTTP packages are often priced the same as, or cheaper than, FTTC and Virgin Media cable, with altnets pushing hard on symmetric deals.
- Satellite and fixed wireless broadband, including Starlink, are growing but still account for only a small share of UK home connections.
- Through the rest of this decade FTTP is expected to become the default option for UK households, with copper withdrawn and cable gradually replaced by fibre.
Full-fibre broadband has crossed an important line in the UK: there are now more FTTP connections in use than FTTC lines. That shift reflects years of heavy investment by Openreach, Virgin Media O2 and a long list of alternative networks – and it is already changing prices, technology choices and what customers expect from a home broadband connection
UK broadband connections by technology in late 2025
Point Topic’s latest quarterly figures put full fibre at just over 11.5 million live connections by Q3 2025, compared with about 10.6 million on FTTC. Taken together, FTTP and FTTC still account for most UK fixed broadband lines, but their roles are reversing: one is growing quickly, the other is now in decline.
Broadband connections by technology in September 2025
| Technology | Connections (Sep 2025) |
|---|---|
| Cable / DOCSIS 3.1 | 5,108,300 |
| DSL (ADSL) | 1,433,000 |
| FTTB | 406,000 |
| FTTC | 10,353,000 |
| FTTP | 11,161,000 |
| FWA / Satellite | 232,300 |
| G.Fast Cabinet | 255,000 |
Behind those headline numbers sit several other technologies. Virgin Media’s DOCSIS 3.1 cable network still has just over 5.1 million broadband customers. Legacy ADSL copper has fallen to about 1.4 million lines. FTTB networks, mainly large-building players such as Hyperoptic, contribute just over 400,000 connections. G.fast cabinets are down to a quarter of a million lines. Fixed wireless and satellite broadband together serve just over 200,000 premises.
So the market is now dominated by three flavours of fast fixed broadband: FTTP, FTTC and DOCSIS 3.1 cable, with full fibre moving centre stage.
Full-fibre coverage from Openreach, Virgin Media O2 and altnets
Coverage is the first reason FTTP has crossed the line. Full fibre now passes close to four in five UK premises and gigabit-capable networks (full fibre plus cable) reach closer to nine in ten homes. That is a huge change from five years ago, when FTTP was still a niche option.
Openreach is still the largest platform. Its FTTP network now passes more than 20 million premises, with a sizeable chunk in rural areas, and it is still adding fibre at a six-figure rate each quarter. The current target is 25 million premises passed by the end of 2026, with an ambition to reach 30 million later in the decade, although the last few million may depend on how Ofcom sets future wholesale prices.
Virgin Media O2 is following a different route. Its legacy DOCSIS 3.1 network passes about 18.7 million premises, and the company is systematically overlaying this coax with XGS-PON fibre through its nexfibre joint venture and Project Mustang upgrade programme. Nexfibre on its own is aiming for about 5 million premises by the end of 2026. When you include older Virgin fibre builds, the combined FTTP footprint is already in the region of 8 million premises.
Take-up rates for selected altnets, Sep 2024 vs Sep 2025
| Altnet supplier / ISP | Sep 2024 | Sep 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| CityFibre | 13% | 18% |
| Community Fibre | 23% | 28% |
| Fibrus | 22% | 28% |
| G.Network | 5% | 3% |
| Gigaclear | 21% | 23% |
| Hyperoptic | 33% | 36% |
| Netomnia | 10% | 18% |
| Toob | 20% | 47% |
| Trooli | 6% | 13% |
| Zzoomm | 15% | 20% |
| Average | 17% | 23% |
Then there are the altnets. CityFibre has passed more than 4 million premises and is targeting over 8 million in the longer term. Netomnia, brsk, Community Fibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, Fibrus, Zzoomm, Toob, Trooli and others have built dense networks in towns, cities and rural pockets. In many areas, Openreach fibre competes with one or two altnets, and in some streets Virgin’s full fibre is arriving on top. That overlap is exactly what policymakers wanted when they encouraged private investment into competing full-fibre networks.
Why households are now choosing FTTP over FTTC and cable
The basic technical story is simple: FTTP replaces the copper in the last leg with fibre all the way into the property. That gives far higher capacity, much lower signal loss over distance and a straightforward path to faster upgrades. Latency is usually lower and performance at busy times tends to be more consistent.
FTTC is constrained by copper for the final stretch from the cabinet to the home. Speeds drop as the line gets longer; upload speeds are modest; and interference on the copper pair can still cause faults. Virgin Media’s DOCSIS 3.1 cable can offer faster download speeds than FTTC and still looks quick on paper, but most plans have much lower upload speeds than equivalent FTTP packages and performance can suffer on heavily used segments.
For real-world usage, those technical differences show up in several ways. Multi-device homes that stream a lot of 4K video, keep game consoles updated and run cloud backup in the background notice when upload speed is weak. Remote workers on video calls notice when latency spikes in the evening. Gamers notice small delays that might not bother casual users. Customers who move from FTTC to FTTP often find that streaming, gaming and large downloads simply feel more responsive, especially at peak times.
Of course, cable and FTTC can still cope with everyday browsing and HD streaming. But when full fibre is available at a similar price, and routers are upgraded at the same time, the temptation to move is obvious.
FTTP pricing compared with FTTC and Virgin Media cable
For years, one argument against FTTP was price: full fibre was seen as premium, and copper-based products were cheaper. That story is now out of date in many areas.
Point Topic’s tariff tracking suggests that the average entry-level superfast package across the market sits at just over thirty pounds a month. Yet a big-name FTTC product such as BT’s Fibre Essential often costs a little more than that, despite offering modest speeds. Meanwhile, 100–200Mbps FTTP packages from Openreach-based ISPs are commonly priced in the low-thirties.
Aggressive pricing from altnets has pushed this further. Gigaclear has been offering a 200Mbps symmetric full-fibre plan for less than twenty pounds a month in some build-out areas. Community Fibre’s 150Mbps plan, with upload speed equal to the download speed, sits under twenty pounds for new customers at the time of writing. Vodafone’s 150Mbps symmetric product is pegged in the low-twenties in selected CityFibre areas. Fibrus has promoted a 100Mbps-plus package for the mid-twenties in parts of Northern Ireland and northern England.
The result is that in many postcodes, a mid-range FTTP plan can cost the same as – or less than – a slower FTTC or cable plan. Premium one gigabit and multi-gigabit packages are still priced clearly higher, but that is now a choice for heavy users rather than a requirement for moving to fibre.
Alt-net take-up rates and the push for scale
Subscriber growth is now the focus for most altnets. Taken together, independent FTTP and FTTB networks serve just over 3 million broadband customers and added nearly 200,000 connections in Q3 2025 alone. That is solid progress, but many of these networks need higher take-up to pay back the cost of their builds.
Point Topic’s take-up table highlights how uneven the picture is. Some altnets have gained serious momentum: Toob’s penetration on its build has surged to nearly half of premises passed, Hyperoptic is into the mid-thirties, and Community Fibre and Fibrus both sit close to thirty percent. Others, such as G.Network, remain stuck in single digits.
That variation is one reason behind the wave of consolidation stories. Virgin Media O2 has held talks about acquiring Netomnia and brsk. CityFibre has bought smaller players to deepen its coverage. Investors and lenders are looking closely at which networks reach scale in time and which might need to be folded into larger groups.
Virgin Media DOCSIS 3.1 compared with full fibre
Virgin Media O2 sits in an unusual position. It still has millions of customers on DOCSIS 3.1 cable, and those connections qualify as gigabit-capable. But the company’s own numbers show that broadband customer totals have started to slip and take-up on its cable network has fallen to just over thirty percent of premises passed.
Part of the answer is pricing: where Openreach FTTP or altnets are available, customers can often get 100–500Mbps full fibre for less than the price of a Virgin cable plan. Another part is technology. Virgin knows that cable has limits, especially on upload speeds, so it is investing heavily in XGS-PON full fibre. Over time, existing coax will be bypassed by fibre in most areas, and customers will be migrated onto the new network.
For now, DOCSIS 3.1 still matters, particularly in places where there is no alternative gigabit-capable network. But the long-term direction is clear: Virgin’s future broadband growth is tied to its fibre upgrade programme rather than another jump in cable standards.
Where FTTC still hangs on in the short term
Despite the milestone, FTTC is not disappearing overnight. Millions of homes are still on FTTC or ADSL, either because they have not bothered to switch yet, they are locked into older contracts, or full fibre has not reached their street.
Openreach’s copper switch-off programme, moving regions onto all-IP products and eventually retiring PSTN, will speed this up. As more exchanges move to stop-sell of legacy products and cabinets become less attractive to maintain, the economics favour encouraging customers onto FTTP as soon as it is available.
For small businesses that rely on broadband but do not yet need dedicated leased lines, FTTC can still be good enough, especially where full fibre is absent. But as fibre reaches more business parks and high streets, it will be harder to justify clinging to VDSL2 for long.
Satellite broadband, Starlink and 5G home broadband
All of this raises a question: could satellite broadband or 5G home broadband leapfrog FTTP over the next decade? At the moment, the numbers say no.
Fixed wireless and satellite broadband together account for just over 200,000 UK connections. Starlink is the best known satellite option, and its new Residential Lite product at £55 a month is cheaper than its standard residential plan. Typical speeds can sit between 80Mbps and 200Mbps, and the service can be a lifeline in remote rural locations.
The drawbacks are just as clear. Latency is higher than on fibre, which matters for gaming and some real-time applications. Hardware carries a significant upfront cost. Capacity on any satellite constellation remains finite, so there is a natural ceiling on how many customers can share it at peak times.
5G home broadband has promise in dense urban areas and as a quick fix for certain streets, but it competes for spectrum with mobile users and performance depends heavily on local signal quality. For most homes, a fixed fibre line still offers a more predictable experience.
The most likely outcome is that fibre, satellite and 5G home broadband sit alongside each other. Full fibre becomes the default in most towns and suburbs; satellite and FWA look after the last fraction of hard-to-reach premises; 5G offers a useful alternative when moving home or waiting for installation.
FTTP as the future of UK fixed broadband
Taken together, the numbers paint a clear picture. Full fibre has overtaken FTTC on active lines, its coverage is closing in on 80 percent of premises, and every major infrastructure player is now focused on fibre rather than copper or pure coax.
Over the next few years, more FTTC cabinets will be bypassed, copper products will disappear from order forms, and Virgin Media’s DOCSIS 3.1 network will be steadily converted to XGS-PON. At the same time, competition between Openreach-based ISPs and altnets will keep prices keen for 100–500Mbps full-fibre packages, while gigabit and multi-gigabit plans become a realistic option for heavy users.
Satellite and fixed wireless broadband will remain important for a minority of premises, and new technologies such as future PON standards or improved Wi-Fi will continue to raise the ceiling on what a home connection can do. But on the evidence so far, the long-term winner in the UK is not a new wireless platform or another twist on copper: it is full fibre running right into the property, backed by a combination of national and regional networks vying for customers street by street.
