UK fixed broadband performance: latest Opensignal report

Opensignal has published its latest report on UK fixed broadband performance, analysing real-world connection data from users across the country.

The report provides an independent snapshot of how major broadband providers perform on metrics including speed, reliability and consistency, based on everyday usage rather than advertised claims.

However, while performance data offers one view of the broadband experience, it does not capture everything.

Opensignal: Fixed Broadband Experience December 2025

The latest UK fixed broadband report from Opensignal analyses real-world performance data collected from users over a recent 90-day period in 2025, covering major national providers and several regional full-fibre networks.

It assesses broadband experience across five measures: Consistent Quality, Download Speed, Upload Speed, Video Experience and Reliability Experience.

At a national level, the report found that Virgin Media ranked highest overall across all measured categories, leading by a wide margin for average Download Speed (187.8Mbps) and Reliability Experience.

Vodafone ranked second nationally, with strong results across Consistent Quality, Reliability Experience and both Download and Upload Speeds, reflecting its use of both the Openreach and CityFibre networks.

The report also highlights the role of Three's fixed wireless access broadband, noting that while it offers an alternative in areas with limited fixed-line coverage, its overall experience trails wired services at a national level.

Regional results show alternative fibre providers leading in several major cities. Community Fibre topped multiple metrics in London, Hyperoptic led for Upload Speed and Reliability Experience in Glasgow, and brsk shared top positions across Manchester and Leeds & Bradford.

Responding to the findings, Virgin Media O2 said the results reflected continued investment in its network, with the company pointing to ongoing upgrades to support growing demand.

Translated into everyday broadband use

The measures tracked in the Opensignal report capture different aspects of how households experience broadband in normal day-to-day use, rather than peak or advertised performance.

Download and upload speeds affect how quickly large files transfer, how smoothly high-definition streaming runs, and how well households cope with multiple devices in use at the same time.

Reliability Experience reflects how consistently a connection remains available, while Consistent Quality measures how often performance meets the thresholds required for common applications during busy periods.

Together, these metrics describe how a connection performs most of the time, rather than at its theoretical maximum, particularly for households relying on broadband for work, streaming and cloud-based services.

The results represent national and city-level averages, shaped by the mix of technologies, speed tiers and in-home equipment used by customers on each network. As a result, individual experience can still vary widely by location, building type and local infrastructure, even within the same provider's footprint.

Fast doesn't mean better service

Yet, Opensignal's results underline a recurring tension in the broadband market: strong technical performance does not automatically translate into a good customer experience.

Providers can score highly on speed, reliability and consistency, yet still generate dissatisfaction when problems arise.

This divergence is reflected in complaints and customer service research published by Ofcom, which shows that providers performing well on network capability are not always among those with the lowest complaint levels. In several cases, some of the fastest and most reliable networks also attract comparatively high volumes of complaints.

In practice, the most disruptive issues tend to emerge not from day-to-day performance, but from what happens when something goes wrong.

Fault resolution, missed engineer appointments and poor communication during outages often shape consumer frustration more than headline speeds, particularly for vulnerable customers and households with complex setups.

That gap is increasingly reflected in how providers organise their operations.

Virgin Media has pointed to investment in UK-based support teams to handle complex and vulnerable cases, while Vodafone and Three have taken similar steps to bring some customer service roles back to the UK.

Taken together, this reinforces a clear distinction in the broadband market: strong network performance does not guarantee a good service experience, and it is often the quality of the resolution path - rather than raw speed or reliability - that determines how providers are experienced by consumers.