UK Broadband 2026: The Half-Year Review
The short version: if you last thought properly about your broadband two years ago, a lot has changed in your favour. The network under your street is probably better. The market price is probably lower. Your rights when something goes wrong are certainly stronger. What has not changed is that loyalty still costs money, and the gap between what a new customer pays and what a long-standing one pays remains the single biggest avoidable expense in UK home broadband.
This is our review of the first half of 2026, running from 1 January to 22 July. Every figure below carries the date the underlying data actually refers to, which is not always the date it was published, and every claim is sourced so you can check it yourself.
The half year at a glance
- Coverage kept climbing. Full fibre reached 82% of UK homes and gigabit-capable networks 89% by January 2026, adding 1.2 million full-fibre homes in six months.
- Prices fell in real terms. Ofcom found average market prices down 6% in the year to September 2025, and gigabit packages are materially cheaper than in 2024.
- Your rights improved on 8 April. The wait to escalate an unresolved complaint dropped from eight weeks to six, and automatic compensation rates rose on 1 April.
- The rural gap nearly closed. Premises with no access to affordable decent broadband fell to around 4,000, largely because satellite got cheaper.
- Two dates to diarise. 15 December 2026 for the competition ruling on the year's biggest merger, and 31 January 2027 for the landline switch-off.
A thank you to ISPreview, and to Mark Jackson
You cannot write honestly about UK broadband without acknowledging ISPreview. For more than twenty-five years it has done the unglamorous, essential work of tracking this industry properly: reading the consultations nobody else reads, holding operators to their claims, publishing the coverage and pricing trackers the rest of us rely on, and asking awkward questions of companies far larger than itself.
Mark Jackson sets the standard we all measure ourselves against. His reporting is fast without being careless, sceptical without being cynical, and consistently careful to distinguish what is confirmed from what is merely announced. That is rarer than it should be, and it makes the whole sector better informed.
Several of the figures in this review come from ISPreview's own trackers and interviews, and we have linked to the original work throughout rather than simply lifting the numbers. If you care about UK broadband, read it directly and often. It is, in our view, the gold standard for independent coverage of this industry.
How much of the UK can actually get full fibre now?
More than four in five homes, which is a genuinely remarkable place to have arrived at. According to Ofcom's Connected Nations update: Spring 2026, published on 13 May 2026 and reflecting coverage data as at January 2026, full fibre was available to 24.9 million UK residential premises, or 82% of homes. Gigabit-capable networks, which include Virgin Media's upgraded cable as well as full fibre, reached 27.1 million homes, or 89%.
The pace is the striking part. Ofcom's figures show an additional 1.2 million homes gained full fibre in the six months to January 2026 alone. To put that in perspective, that is roughly the housing stock of Greater Manchester connected in half a year.
UK coverage and take-up, January 2026
Source: Ofcom, Connected Nations update: Spring 2026. Residential premises.
That third bar is the interesting one. Fibre has been laid past millions of homes that have not yet moved onto it, and in a great many cases the fibre package costs the same or less than the older copper one people are still paying for.
The climb over five years is worth seeing as a whole, because it is easy to forget how recent all of this is. In 2021, full fibre reached under a quarter of the country.
Full fibre availability across the UK
Sources: Ofcom Connected Nations reports. Each figure is dated to when the data was collected, not published.
Which parts of the UK are doing best?
Northern Ireland, and it is not close. On the nation-level figures in Ofcom's Connected Nations 2025 report, published 19 November 2025 and reflecting July 2025 data, Northern Ireland had full fibre available to 95% of homes. England was on 79%, Wales 78% and Scotland 71%. Northern Ireland is on course for near-universal full fibre by 2028, which would make it one of the best-connected places in Europe.
Full fibre availability by nation, July 2025
Source: Ofcom, Connected Nations 2025.
Scotland's lower full fibre figure understates its position, because Virgin Media's cable network fills much of the gap. On gigabit-capable coverage overall, Scotland sits at roughly 81%.
There is a lovely counter-intuitive detail buried in the take-up data too. Where full fibre is available, rural households in England have taken it up at 54% against 39% in urban areas. When you have lived with a slow connection, you do not need persuading.
Adrian's take
The 47% take-up figure is the one I would put on a poster. We spent a decade arguing about whether the UK could build full fibre, and we largely won that argument. The next challenge is quieter and much easier: getting people to actually use what has already been paid for and laid past their door. A lot of households are sitting on an old copper package, paying the same or more than a fibre one would cost, simply because nobody has told them the street changed.
What happened to broadband prices in 2026?
Two things happened at once, which is why people's experiences differ so sharply.
The market got cheaper. Ofcom's Pricing and Consumer Engagement Report, published on 26 February 2026 and covering the year to September 2025, found that average broadband prices fell by 6% in real terms, with the fastest falls on the highest speed tiers. Only the slowest tier, under 30Mbit/s, failed to fall.
Meanwhile individual bills went up, because most contracts now carry a fixed annual increase. Both things are true. The market is getting cheaper for people who move, and slowly more expensive for people who stay put.
Average monthly price of a 1Gbps package, 2024 versus 2026
Source: ISPreview, April 2026, data gathered January to February 2026. First contract term, Openreach network.
Across the largest providers
Across all providers listed
Gigabit broadband from a major provider is more than £10 a month cheaper than it was two years ago. The cheapest package in ISPreview's sample was £30.99 a month.
What are the confirmed price rises for spring 2027?
Since January 2025, providers have not been allowed to write inflation-linked or percentage-based increases into new contracts. Any rise has to be stated in pounds and pence, up front, when you sign. The upside of that rule is that you can look up your 2027 increase today.
| Provider | Confirmed rise | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| BT | £4.00 a month | 31 March 2027 |
| EE | £4.00 a month | 31 March 2027 |
| Plusnet | £4.00 a month | 31 March 2027 |
| Virgin Media | £4.00 a month | April 2027 |
| TalkTalk | £4.00 a month | April 2027 |
| Vodafone | £3.50 a month | 1 April 2027 |
| Three | £3.50 a month | 1 April 2027 |
| Sky | Not yet published | Usually announced around February |
Two things worth knowing. Which figure applies to you depends on when you signed, so check your own contract rather than assuming. And if you are out of contract, none of this applies to you at all: you can leave whenever you like, with no exit fee.
Adrian's take
I will give the pounds-and-pence rule its due. Before 2025, working out your future bill meant guessing at next year's inflation and then adding an arbitrary 3.9% on top. Now you can read the number, in pounds, before you sign. That is a real improvement and Ofcom deserves credit for it. What it has not done is make the rises go away, and I understand entirely why a household seeing £4 a month added for the second year running feels the transparency is cold comfort. The honest answer is that the rule shifted power to the moment you sign, so that is where you should use it.
How much can you actually save?
This is the part of the review with the most immediate cash value, so here is the number in isolation.
the average amount an out-of-contract household could save each year by switching broadband provider. Around 8.8 million UK customers are currently out of contract.
Broadband Genie switching research, quoted alongside Ofcom's 2026 pricing report.
Ofcom's own data lines up with that. It found 28% of broadband customers are out of contract, and that in-contract customers typically spend £7 to £9 a month less than out-of-contract ones for comparable service. Over a year, that gap is the difference between a good deal and a quietly expensive habit.
The encouraging news is that more people are acting on it. Ofcom found 18% of households switched provider in the most recent year measured, up from 14% in 2023. One Touch Switch, the system that lets you arrange everything through the new provider alone, has now handled more than 3 million completed switches since it went live in September 2024, with nearly 148,000 completed in May 2026 alone.
One Touch Switches completed since September 2024
of households switched provider, up from 14% in 2023
of broadband customers are out of contract right now
If you want to check where you stand, our One Touch Switch guide explains the process, and our switching hub covers the practicalities.
Did consumer rights get better in 2026?
Yes, in two concrete ways, both landing in April.
First, from 8 April 2026 you can escalate an unresolved complaint to an independent ombudsman after six weeks instead of eight. That sounds like a small administrative change until you see Ofcom's reasoning: of roughly 700,000 consumers who still had an open complaint at the six-week mark, only about 19% saw it resolved before the old eight-week threshold arrived. In other words, most people were waiting an extra fortnight for nothing.
Second, automatic compensation rates rose on 1 April 2026. These are paid as bill credit, usually within 30 days, without you having to ask.
per day if a total loss of service is not fixed within two full working days
per missed engineer appointment, or one cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice
per day that the start of a new service is delayed
The scheme is voluntary, but its signatories cover roughly 97% of landline and 91% of broadband customers. In 2024 it paid out over £63 million across approximately one million individual payments. Our automatic compensation guide sets out exactly who qualifies and how the payments work.
There was a third win in July. On 15 July 2026 Ofcom finalised new rules on scam text messages, requiring mobile providers to gather scam intelligence, block scam numbers and messages in transit, cap message volumes on pay-as-you-go SIMs and run identity checks on business senders. Context for why that matters: UK Finance reported that criminals stole £1.28 billion through payment fraud in 2025 across more than four million cases. Ofcom's Amy Jordan put it plainly, saying such scams can have a "devastating impact on their victims".
Which broadband providers get the fewest complaints?
Ofcom publishes this quarterly, and it is one of the most useful pieces of consumer data in the whole sector because it is normalised per 100,000 customers, so a big provider cannot hide behind having more customers.
In the most recently published quarter, October to December 2025, released on 11 May 2026, the picture looked like this.
Broadband complaints per 100,000 customers
Source: Ofcom telecommunications complaints, Q4 2025 (October to December). Lower is better.
Now for the piece of context that almost never gets reported. Back in 2010 and 2011, broadband complaints ran at roughly 35 to 40 per 100,000 customers. Today the entire industry sits in single digits, and the worst performer in the table above would have been comfortably the best performer fifteen years ago.
2010 to 2011
broadband complaints per 100,000 customers
Q4 2025
industry average, per 100,000 customers
Adrian's take
Complaints data is the closest thing we have to an honest scoreboard, and I would encourage anyone shopping around to look at it before the headline price. But do read it fairly. A provider near the top of the table for one quarter is often dealing with one specific event, and Vodafone's figure this quarter was heavily driven by faults and provisioning rather than a company-wide collapse in service. The trend across fifteen years is the real story here, and it is a good one.
What is happening with the smaller fibre networks?
The independent networks, usually called altnets, had a formidable 2025 and a more complicated 2026.
The scale first. According to INCA and Point Topic's State of the Altnets 2026, published in March 2026, altnets had passed 19.7 million UK premises by the end of 2025, up 20% in a year, with more than 3.5 million live connections, up 32%. Over 850,000 customers switched to an altnet during 2025, closely mirroring Openreach's roughly 860,000 net line losses. In Ofcom's hardest-to-reach Area 3, altnets have now passed nearly 4.4 million premises.
That competitive pressure is a large part of why prices have fallen. INCA's analysis found that homes with a choice of four or more fibre networks consistently see lower average pricing than those served only by Openreach.
The complication is money. Building fibre is enormously capital-intensive, and 2026 brought consolidation and, in places, job losses. Gigaclear completed a lender-led recapitalisation. G.Network passed through administration and emerged debt-free. Vispa, a small Manchester ISP, ceased trading in February. CityFibre, which passes around 4.7 million premises and serves over a million customers, announced two rounds of redundancies during the year affecting several hundred staff. Those are real jobs and real people, and we are not going to dress that up.
The single biggest story is the proposed £2 billion acquisition of Netomnia, which owns YouFibre, by nexfibre. It is now the subject of an in-depth Competition and Markets Authority investigation, with a statutory decision deadline of 15 December 2026. Both sides of that argument deserve a hearing.
Supporters argue it creates a genuinely scaled and financially secure challenger to Openreach, with the combined footprint expected to reach 8 million premises by the end of 2027. A well-funded competitor, on this view, keeps downward pressure on prices for longer than a fragmented field of under-capitalised builders would.
CityFibre's chief executive Simon Holden argues the deal "would remove a successful challenger and reduce choice for consumers", citing substantial network overlap. Point Topic's analysis notes that meaningful independent wholesale options could fall from three to two, and expects the CMA may look at conditions rather than a clean approval.
A note on proportion, from Assembly Research analyst James Robinson: fast-tracking to an in-depth review does not itself mean the regulator believes the deal harms competition. It simply gets to the substantive questions faster.
If you are a customer of any of the networks involved, our guide on what happens when your provider is bought or sold explains why your price and contract terms are protected regardless of who ends up owning the network.
Has rural broadband finally been solved?
Not entirely, but 2026 brought the closest thing to a solution the countryside has had.
Ofcom's January 2026 data showed around 39,000 UK premises still unable to get decent broadband from a fixed line or fixed wireless connection, down from 44,000 six months earlier: roughly 23,000 in England, 9,000 in Scotland, 6,000 in Wales and 1,500 in Northern Ireland. That is a small number in a country of 30 million homes, but it is not zero, and for those households it is a daily frustration.
The striking development is what happens when you count satellite. Ofcom found that once cheaper satellite options are included, the number of premises without access to affordable decent broadband falls to around 4,000. In July 2026 Ofcom confirmed that Starlink now counts as a viable alternative to the 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation across much of the country, meaning fewer households need to fall back on that legal safety net.
UK premises without decent broadband, January 2026
Source: Ofcom, Connected Nations update: Spring 2026.
Roughly 90% of the residual rural gap has effectively been closed by falling satellite prices. For context, Starlink UK connections rose from around 87,000 to over 110,000 in a year, with more than 12,000 of those in places that could not get decent fixed or wireless broadband at all.
Satellite is not a universal answer. It needs a clear view of the sky, which rules out many flats, its pricing has moved several times this year, and full fibre remains preferable where you can get it for reliability and upload speed. There are also legitimate concerns from astronomers about the growth of satellite constellations, which the UK Government acknowledged in July 2026. But for a farmhouse at the end of a long lane, the practical difference is enormous.
Before assuming satellite is your only option, do check. Altnets have reached far more of rural Britain than most people realise. Our rural switching guide walks through the alternatives.
Adrian's take
Going from 39,000 to 4,000 is one of those statistics that ought to have made the national news and did not. For twenty years the rural broadband problem looked structurally unsolvable, and a combination of fibre builders working through Project Gigabit and satellite prices falling has quietly reduced it to a rounding error. I would still rather see fibre in the ground, and so would most of the households concerned. But nobody at the end of a long lane in 2026 should be told there is nothing available, because that is no longer true.
What is happening with the landline switch-off?
This is the largest change most households will experience, and it deserves care rather than drama.
The old analogue phone network, the PSTN, is being retired on 31 January 2027. From then on, landline calls travel over broadband instead. Openreach reported in February 2026 that roughly 2.8 million lines were still to migrate, more than half a million of them serving businesses.
For most people this is undramatic. Your number stays the same and the phone works as before, though it plugs into the router rather than the wall socket. The genuine issue is equipment that has quietly depended on the old line for decades.
If anyone in your home uses a care alarm, please read this bit
Around 1.8 million people in the UK rely on telecare devices: pendant alarms, fall detectors, lift lines and similar equipment. Some older units were designed for the analogue network and may not work correctly once a line is switched to digital.
What to do: contact the company that supplies the alarm, not just your broadband provider, and ask them directly whether your specific device is confirmed compatible with a digital line. Do this now rather than in January 2027, when everyone else will be asking at once.
What is already protected: under the industry charter, providers have agreed not to migrate a household with a known telecare user until a confirmed working solution is in place, to offer an engineer visit, and to supply battery back-up that exceeds Ofcom's one-hour minimum. Tell your provider if anyone in the household is vulnerable or depends on the line, because that flag is what triggers the extra support.
Our guide to broadband switching with a care alarm or health pendant covers this in detail, and our report The Last Dial Tone sets out the full background to the switch-off.
Is broadband becoming more affordable for people on low incomes?
Slowly, and there is a large and easily fixed gap here.
Social tariffs are discounted broadband packages for households on qualifying benefits, typically costing between £12.50 and £24 a month, and they are available in around 99% of the country. Take-up reached 532,000 households as at June 2025, up from 506,000.
The problem is what that represents: just 8.6% of eligible households. More than nine in ten families who could get a cheaper bill are not on one, overwhelmingly because they do not know these tariffs exist.
The biggest open goal in UK broadband
532,000 households are on a social tariff. Around 5.7 million more are eligible and paying full price. For a household that qualifies, moving to one can save roughly £200 a year.
Source: Ofcom, Pricing and Consumer Engagement Report, February 2026, reflecting June 2025 data.
If you or someone you know receives Universal Credit, Pension Credit, Employment and Support Allowance, Jobseeker's Allowance or Income Support, it is worth five minutes to check. Our social tariffs guide lists who qualifies and what is available. There is no penalty for asking and no impact on your benefits.
Adrian's take
If I could change one thing about this industry tomorrow, it would be this. Every other statistic in this review moved in the right direction because companies invested billions of pounds and regulators wrote careful rules. Social tariff take-up is stuck at 8.6% because of something far simpler and far more fixable: people do not know. Providers could put it on the bill of every customer whose payment history suggests they might qualify. Until that happens, the rest of us can at least tell a neighbour.
The regulator's biggest call of the year
On 17 March 2026, Ofcom published its Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031, the five-year framework that sets the terms on which every network operator can use Openreach's ducts and poles. It came into force on 1 April 2026. It is technical, it received almost no mainstream coverage, and it will shape what you pay for the next five years.
Broadly, Ofcom chose continuity. Openreach keeps its obligation to offer access to its physical infrastructure at cost-based prices, with a strict non-discrimination duty. The lighter-touch competitive area was expanded from 70% to 86% of premises, reflecting how much competition has arrived.
Not everyone was pleased, and the criticism came from a serious place.
Fibrus, which has invested around £750 million across Northern Ireland and Cumbria, was sharply critical. Group managing director Colin Hutchinson said the review "failed" to address what he called a margin squeeze, arguing operators pay far more for Openreach infrastructure access in rural areas than urban ones.
The company warned the outcome risks "a permanent digital divide between rural and urban Britain", and co-founder Conal Henry called for national per-premise pricing instead.
Ofcom examined alternative rural pricing structures and decided against them, judging the existing framework sufficiently effective at encouraging build in both rural and urban settings. It also extended the price cap to cover speeds up to 80Mbit/s, protecting customers still on older connections.
The supporting evidence is not trivial: full fibre went from 24% of premises in 2021 to 78% by July 2025 under this framework, with 169 operators using Openreach infrastructure access.
Both positions are defensible. Ofcom can point to one of the fastest fibre rollouts in Europe. Fibrus can point to the specific economics of connecting a scattered rural parish. Our view is simply that this argument matters enormously to anyone living outside a town, and it deserves far more attention than it has had.
And then the government changed
On 20 July 2026, following a change of Prime Minister, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was abolished. Its responsibilities were redistributed, with telecoms and the Project Gigabit rollout moving into a new Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, while digital and online safety functions moved to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
For households, the immediate practical effect is nil. Existing Project Gigabit contracts continue, and the build programme runs on. It is worth flagging simply because it is very recent, and anyone reading older guidance will find it refers to a department that no longer exists.
On the rollout itself, the July 2026 progress figures showed 287,510 premises built under the main Gigabit Infrastructure Subsidy contracts, out of 838,490 planned, or roughly 34% complete. The national ambition is around 99% gigabit coverage by 2032, and Ofcom's own forecast suggests up to 95% could be reached by January 2029.
What is coming next?
Four dates are worth putting in your diary.
One further date matters for the longer term: during 2027 Ofcom will assess whether its pounds-and-pence pricing rules are actually working. Consumer groups have argued that timetable is too slow, and providers argue the rules already deliver the clarity intended. That review is where the future of annual price rises will be decided.
So what should you actually do?
Five things, in order of how much money they are likely to save you.
If you are out of contract, you are almost certainly overpaying and you can leave with no exit fee. This single check is worth an average of £183.60 a year.
82% of homes can get it and only 47% of those have taken it. It is frequently the same price or cheaper than the copper package you are on.
If anyone in the household receives a qualifying benefit, this is worth around £200 a year and takes minutes to check.
If anyone in the home uses telecare, confirm digital compatibility with the alarm supplier well ahead of 31 January 2027.
Missed engineer appointment? That is £32.31. Days without service? £10.34 a day. It should be automatic, so check your bill credits.
Adrian's closing thought
I have covered this industry for long enough to remember when a two-hour film took overnight to download and nobody expected any better. The UK now has one of the faster-growing full fibre networks in Europe, complaint rates a fraction of what they were, compensation that arrives without you asking, and a switching system that works in a single phone call. That is worth saying out loud, because good news travels slowly in consumer journalism. The remaining problems are real, and the price rises genuinely rankle. But they are the problems of a market that mostly works, which is a much better position than the one we were in ten years ago.
Frequently asked questions
Is UK broadband getting better or worse in 2026?
On the measurable evidence, better. Full fibre reached 82% of UK homes and gigabit-capable networks 89% by January 2026. Average market prices fell 6% in real terms in the year to September 2025, complaints are at historic lows, and both compensation rates and complaint-escalation rights improved in April 2026. The main frustration remains annual mid-contract price rises, which are confirmed to happen again in spring 2027.
How much will my broadband go up in April 2027?
For most big providers it is already set in pounds and pence. BT, EE, Plusnet, Virgin Media and TalkTalk have confirmed £4 a month, and Vodafone and Three £3.50 a month, applying at the end of March or start of April 2027. The exact amount depends on when you signed. Sky has not yet published a 2027 figure. If you are out of contract, no rise applies to you and you are free to switch.
How much can I save by switching broadband?
Broadband Genie research quoted alongside Ofcom found that 8.8 million out-of-contract broadband customers could save an average of £183.60 a year by switching. Ofcom's own data shows 28% of broadband customers are out of contract, and that in-contract customers typically pay £7 to £9 a month less than out-of-contract ones.
Which broadband provider gets the fewest complaints?
In Ofcom's most recent published quarter, October to December 2025, Plusnet and Virgin Media were joint best for broadband at 5 complaints per 100,000 customers, against an industry average of 7. Vodafone recorded the most at 11 and TalkTalk 10. Broadband complaints across the industry are far below the 35 to 40 per 100,000 seen in 2010 and 2011.
What happens on 31 January 2027?
The old analogue phone network, the PSTN, is switched off and all landline calls move to digital. Around 2.8 million lines were still to migrate as of early 2026. If anyone in your home uses a care alarm, telecare pendant or lift line, contact that provider now to confirm a digital-compatible solution. Under the industry charter, providers have agreed not to migrate telecare users without a confirmed working solution in place.
References
- BT. (2026). Our annual price changes. https://www.bt.com/help/prices-and-terms/annual-price-changes
- Building Digital UK. (2026). Project Gigabit contract progress, July 2026. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/project-gigabit-uk-gigabit-programme
- Competition and Markets Authority. (2026). nexfibre / Substantial merger inquiry. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/nexfibre-slash-substantial-merger-inquiry
- Fibrus. (2026). Response to Ofcom's Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031. https://fibrus.com/news
- INCA and Point Topic. (2026). State of the Altnets 2026. Independent Networks Cooperative Association. https://inca.coop/state-of-the-altnets-2026/
- ISPreview. (2026, April 7). Comparing 1Gbps broadband ISP packages on Openreach's UK network 2026. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/04/comparing-isp-prices-for-1gbps-broadband-on-openreachs-uk-network-2026-vs-2024.html
- ISPreview. (2026, May 5). Fibrus MD warns Ofcom may have killed private investment in rural UK broadband. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/05/fibrus-md-warns-ofcom-may-have-killed-private-investment-in-rural-uk-broadband.html
- ISPreview. (2026, July 7). Gigabit broadband coverage reaches 91 percent of the UK in H1 2026. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/07/gigabit-broadband-coverage-tops-percent-of-the-uk-in-h1-2026.html
- ISPreview. (2026, July 13). Ofcom confirms Starlink is viable option for 10Mbps UK broadband USO. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/07/ofcom-confirms-starlink-is-viable-option-for-10mbps-uk-broadband-uso.html
- Ofcom. (2025). Connected Nations 2025. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/coverage-and-speeds/connected-nations-2025/
- Ofcom. (2026). Connected Nations update: Spring 2026. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/coverage-and-speeds/connected-nations-update-spring-2026
- Ofcom. (2026). Pricing and consumer engagement report. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/bills-and-charges/new-ofcom-research-reveals-how-to-cut-phone-and-internet-bills
- Ofcom. (2026). Telecommunications complaints, Q4 2025. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/telecoms-complaints-data
- Ofcom. (2026). Telecoms Access Review 2026 to 2031: Statement. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/telecoms-infrastructure/telecoms-access-review-2026
- Ofcom. (2026). Automatic compensation: what you need to know. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/automatic-compensation-need-know
- Ofcom. (2026). Quicker complaints resolution for telecoms customers, under new Ofcom rules. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/service-quality/review-of-adr-in-the-telecoms-sector2
- Ofcom. (2026, July 15). New rules to thwart text message scammers. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/scams-and-nuisance-calls/
- Openreach. (2026). The UK's digital phone switchover. https://www.openreach.com/upgrading-uk-to-digital-phone-lines
- UK Finance. (2026). Annual Fraud Report 2026. https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/policy-and-guidance/reports-and-publications
Written by Adrian James, Broadband Editor at BroadbandSwitch.uk (LinkedIn). Reviewed by Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith (LinkedIn). Published 22 July 2026. Every figure carries the date its underlying data refers to. Prices are illustrative and vary by postcode. This guide is information, not advice.