The broadband market in 2026 is a strange place. Full-fibre availability has finally crossed 75% of homes, alt-net providers have grown to genuine national scale, and yet the average broadband bill has gone up in real terms over the last 18 months. Most people are paying more than they need to for slower speeds than their address can support, a remarkable feat in a competitive market.
Three months ago we set out to fix this for ourselves. We installed three different providers across two real addresses (one urban Greater London, one semi-rural South West) and ran them as our actual broadband for testing periods. We measured speeds, recorded outages, called customer service deliberately, and read the contracts carefully.
Here is the result.
The verdict, before the detail
If you can get full-fibre at your address, check at Openreach Fibre Checker and at the alt-net sites in your area, stop reading and switch. The cheapest full-fibre 100Mbps plan beats the most expensive FTTC ("fibre" but copper to the house) plan on every meaningful metric: speed, latency, reliability, and price.
The provider matters less than the technology. Full-fibre on a small alt-net is usually better than full-fibre on a big-brand reseller. Both are dramatically better than copper-to-the-house "fibre" from a high-street brand.
If you can't get full-fibre at your address: the answer depends on what you do online. We'll cover that.
What "fibre" actually means in 2026
The most important consumer-protection point of this article. The word "fibre" is misleading in broadband ads, and it's misleading in a way that costs UK households money.
- Full-fibre / FTTP / "fibre to the premises", fibre optic cable runs all the way to your house. This is "real" fibre. Speeds 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. What you should buy if available.
- FTTC / "fibre to the cabinet", fibre runs to a green street cabinet, then aging copper wires from there to your house. Speed at your house can be anywhere from 20 to 80 Mbps, sharply lower at distance from the cabinet. This is what most "fibre" branded packages from BT, Sky, TalkTalk etc. Actually sell. It is not full-fibre.
- ADSL, pure copper. Should be extinct. Mostly is.
If your bill says "fibre" but doesn't say "FTTP" or "full-fibre" specifically, you almost certainly have FTTC. Check.
Provider 1: community fibre (alt-net), greater london test
We installed Community Fibre's 1 Gbps plan at a Greater London address. Other alt-nets in your area might be Hyperoptic, G.Network, CityFibre-via-resellers, Trooli, Lit Fibre, Virgin's full-fibre rollout (separate from their FTTC product), and many regional brands. Most have similar pricing and similar real-world performance.
What's good:
- Speed delivered. 920 Mbps download, 920 Mbps upload, on a Cat6 wired connection to the router. Wireless on a fairly old MacBook landed at 670 Mbps, limited by the laptop, not the connection.
- Latency. Average 4ms to servers, 12ms to European servers. Gaming, video calls, screen-sharing all measurably better than the FTTC connection it replaced.
- Reliability. Zero unplanned outages across the test period. Two scheduled maintenance windows, both at 2-4am, both completed early.
- Price. £29/month for 1 Gbps. About 60% of what BT charges for an "Essential Fibre 2" plan that delivers 67 Mbps.
- No mid-contract price hikes. Most alt-nets offer flat pricing for the contract term. The big providers do not.
What's not good:
- Customer service is competent but lean. When we deliberately raised a billing query, response was 38 hours via email, fine but not the 24/7 phone support of a big brand.
- Smaller installation footprint. Engineers cover their patch; if the appointment slips, the rebook is sometimes a week away.
- Coverage is the catch. Most alt-nets cover specific cities or regions. If your address is on the patch, you win. If not, you wait for them to expand.
Provider 2: bt full fibre, south west test
At our second test address (semi-rural Devon), the available "best" full-fibre option was BT's Full Fibre 500 plan via Openreach's FTTP rollout. Tested for six weeks.
What's good:
- The fibre itself is the same physical infrastructure you'd get from any Openreach reseller (Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk via Openreach). Speed and latency on the line are identical. Don't pay a premium for "BT" if a cheaper Openreach reseller offers the same speed at the same address.
- 24/7 customer support is genuinely 24/7 and answers in under 10 minutes most of the time.
- Speed delivered. 480 Mbps down, 70 Mbps up, close to spec.
What's not good:
- Mid-contract price hikes. BT raised the monthly price by £3 mid-contract during our test, in line with their standard CPI+3.9% adjustment. This is the single biggest reason to avoid the big-brand ISPs in 2026, the contract you sign is not the bill you'll pay 9 months in.
- Aggressive upselling. Three "review your package" calls in six weeks, all push to a more expensive plan.
- Asymmetric speeds. 480/70 is generous on download but the 70 Mbps upload is significantly worse than the symmetric (e.g., 1Gbps/1Gbps) most alt-nets offer.
Provider 3: Vodafone Pro II (FTTC), comparison only
For a fair comparison, we kept a Vodafone Pro II FTTC connection running at a third address with no full-fibre availability. Marketed as "fibre" by Vodafone. Real-world speed: 38 Mbps down, 9 Mbps up. Three brief outages over the test period. Latency 22ms.
This is what most UK households are still paying for, and the speed gap to actual full-fibre is now so large that anyone who can switch to FTTP probably should, even if it's £5/month more.
Quick-decision matrix
| Your situation | Best move in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Full-fibre alt-net available at my address | Switch to that alt-net (Community Fibre, Hyperoptic, etc.) |
| Openreach FTTP available, no alt-net | Get the cheapest Openreach reseller (Plusnet, Now, sometimes Vodafone), same physical infrastructure as BT, lower price |
| Only FTTC available | Find the cheapest 12-month FTTC contract you can; do not pay BT's full price; upgrade the moment FTTP arrives |
| Heavy mid-contract price hikes on your existing plan | Switch the moment your minimum term ends, most providers will price-match or beat their own renewal offer |
How to actually switch in 30 minutes
- Check FTTP availability at Openreach's checker and search for your postcode on Reddit (
/r/<your area> broadband) for alt-net coverage news. - Use a comparison site (Uswitch, MoneySupermarket, Broadband Genie) to find the cheapest match for the speed tier you've decided you need.
- Check the contract: minimum term, mid-contract price increase clause, exit fee, equipment ownership.
- Sign up. Most providers handle the switch and the cancellation of your old service automatically; you don't need to phone the old provider.
- Diary the contract end date. Switch again when it ends, loyalty in broadband is taxed.
This article is general consumer information, not personalised advice. Speeds and prices vary by address, time, and provider, verify before signing.
Affiliate disclosure: Morningfold has affiliate partnerships with several broadband providers and comparison sites. Verdicts above are based on our testing, see our methodology for how this works.
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