Network benchmarking giant Ookla, which collects data from consumers via their popular broadband and mobile Speedtest.net service, has named mobile operator Three UK as the United Kingdom’s Top-Rated Speedtest Awards winner during Q3-Q4 2025.

The Government’s Building Digital UK (BDUK) agency has today confirmed that the previously stalled Project Gigabit broadband roll-out contract for the Peak District (Lot 3.01), which was originally held by FullFibre Limited until they “mutually agreed to terminate” it in May 2025 (here), has now been picked up by Openreach (BT).

The Government has published an evaluation of recent flexi-permit trials, which is a process that UK mobile and broadband operators have been requesting for some years. But despite most of the feedback being positive, the number of caveats involved meant the evaluation was “not able to make a definitive recommendation either in favour of or against proceeding with flexi-permit legislation“.

Mobile operator O2 (Virgin Media) has announced that they’ve switched-on their next-generation 5G Standalone (5GSA / 5G+) mobile broadband network in 47 large towns and cities, 79 smaller towns and 597 rural villages across West Midlands (England). The development also means that their 5G+ network now covers more than 85% of the UK’s population.

Internet provider Sky Broadband (Sky TV) has today discounted their Full Fibre 1Gbps Gigafast broadband package (average speeds of 900Mbps download and 90Mbps upload) to just £30 per month on a 24-month minimum term for new customers (rising to £52 per month thereafter).

A quick look at the global Threat Map from internet security giant Spamhaus can sometimes be quite illuminating. The map displays the activity of botnets around the world, fuelled by malware infected devices, and these days it’s not uncommon to see the likes of Sky (Sky Broadband), Virgin Media and BT popping up in the top ten table (i.e. ISPs with the most infected connections).

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has today notified UK ISPs that they’ve launched a new special offer on their 1Gbps speed Ethernet Access Direct (EAD) lines, which will give providers a fixed price rental for new provides so long as they commit to at least a 3 or 5 year minimum contract term.

Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of its parentage with Virgin Media (harnessing the same build teams), O2 and giffgaff, has today announced a £44 million investment in Greater Manchester to help upgrade 318,000 premises to full fibre (FTTP) broadband. The announcement relates to the planned acquisition of “fellow ‘altnet’” Netomnia.

The Government have announced that Sir Ian Cheshire has been shortlisted as their preferred candidate to become the next Chair of UK telecoms, internet and media regulator, Ofcom – subject to a parliamentary hearing before final appointment. The post is currently held by Michael Grade (Lord Grade of Yarmouth), but his 4-year term is due to end on 30th April 2026.

A team of security researchers from Hong Kong have demonstrated a covert way of turning standard fibre optic broadband cables, such as those used to connect homes (FTTP), into passive and undetectable microphones, which can be used to eavesdrop on conversations people may be having inside a property (house, office etc.).

Several key creditors of the indebted Abingdon-based alternative broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has built a full fibre (FTTP) network across 612,000 premises in rural parts of England and is home to 170,000 customers, will today formalise an agreement to take control of the business after earlier attempts to sell the company failed. But the lenders are expected to take a big haircut.

Network analyst firm Streetwave have today shared the results from a recent survey they conducted, which tested the mobile broadband coverage and performance of 4G and 5G networks – including EE, Three UK, Vodafone and O2 – across the Moray Council area in Scotland. Overall the study found a 40 point performance gap between the best and worst mobile networks.

Broadband provider WightFibre, which operates its own independent gigabit speed Full Fibre (FTTP) network across the Isle of Wight – just off the South Coast of Hampshire in England, has this week become the latest ISP to sign up to the Government’s new Telecoms Consumer Charter (TCC).

The current market is chocked full of eSIM providers for travel and general roaming purposes, which makes it a bit of a nightmare to figure out which ones to include in our summary. In the end, we decided to pick a fairly random cross-section of providers, which should hopefully be diverse enough to represent the sort of choices available. In each case we opted to extract a sample of three packages from each provider, spread across two different countries (popular ones for tourism) to test the bounds of price – Spain and the USA. In terms of the package choices, we’ve attempted to select plans that conform as closely as possible to one of three different tiers: Package Classes for Comparison ➤ Basic: The cheapest eSIM plan for c.1GB of data. ➤ Standard: The cheapest eSIM plan for 20GB of data with at least a c.7-10 day expiry period (approximating a typical week of holiday). ➤ Premium: The cheapest eSIM plan for closest amount of data to “unlimited” usage with at least a c.7-10 day expiry period (approximating a typical week of holiday). Take note that we’ve only looked at fairly regular data-only travel eSIMs and providers below. But some operators, like Sim Local and World Sim, do offer additional plans with calls and texts included too (included allowances for those are usually fairly limited); sometimes these can even be used across multiple countries, which is handy for frequent travellers. Speaking of which, there’s another twist in the above approach – Anywhere eSIM will give you a single plan that can work across all of the UK’s major mobile operators (not listed below as they aren’t a global travel eSIM provider). This is akin to a sort of national roaming service, which acts as a backup to your main SIM and picks the network with the best signal, but data usage is very limited. In addition, FlexiPhone does something very similar to Anywhere eSIM, except they have a wider choice of monthly plans and also support inclusive roaming across over 55 other countries. But if domestic coverage isn’t a problem for you then this could be seen as quite expensive. Finally, you could alternatively try picking up a cheap pre-paid data SIM at the airport when you arrive, but availability and choice will vary between locations. The following table of example eSIM travel providers and plans is unordered due to the wide variation in product selection, which makes it hard to organise by price. Smartphone users may want to view this table in landscape mode, as we couldn’t fit everything in for the normal portrait view. Comparison of Travel eSIMs (Dec 2025 Data) Provider Country Plan Price Data Expiry World SIM Spain Basic £1.75 1GB 7 Days Standard £14.85 20GB 30 Days Premium £12.77 Unlimited * 7 Days USA Basic £1.85 1GB 7 Days Standard £10.47 20GB 30 Days Premium £19.86 Unlimited * 7 Days Sim Local Spain Basic £3 1GB 7 Days Standard £17.50 20GB 30 Days Premium £23 Unlimited * 7 Days USA Basic £6.50 3GB 30 Days Standard £25.50 20GB 31 Days Premium £38 Unlimited * 7 Days Breeze eSIM Spain Basic £3 1GB 7 Days Standard £21 20GB 30 Days Premium £17 Unlimited * 7 Days USA Basic £3 1GB 7 Days Standard £32 20GB 30 Days Premium £18 Unlimited * 7 Days GoMoWorld Spain Basic €3.99 (£3.46) 4GB 7 Days Standard €10.99 (£9.54) 15GB 30 Days Premium €29.99 (£26.04) 82GB 30 Days USA Basic €3.99 (£3.46) 2GB 7 Days Standard €19.99 (£17.36) 20GB 30 Days Premium €29.99 (£26.04) 30GB 30 Days Saily (NordVPN) Spain Basic $3.99 (£2.97) 1GB 7 Days Standard $22.99 (£17.10) 20GB 30 Days Premium $34.99 (£26) Unlimited * 10 Days USA Basic $3.99 (£2.97) 1GB 7 Days Standard $36.99 (£27.52) 20GB 30 Days Premium $34.99 (£26) Unlimited * 10 Days Holafly Spain Basic n/a n/a n/a Standard n/a n/a n/a Premium £24 Unlimited * 7 Days USA Basic n/a n/a n/a Standard n/a n/a n/a Premium £24 Unlimited * 7 Days Nomad Spain Basic £3.34 1GB 7 Days Standard £14.84 20GB 30 Days Premium £17.07 Unlimited * 7 Days USA Basic £3.71 1GB 7 Days Standard £25.97 20GB 30 Days Premium £17.07 Unlimited * 7 Days Airalo Spain Basic €6.50 (£5.63) 3GB 7 Days Standard €19.50 (£16.89) 20GB 15 Days Premium €26 (£22.52) Unlimited * 7 Days USA Basic €4 (£3.46) 1GB 7 Days Standard €32.50 (£28.15) 20GB 30 Days Premium none none none eSIM.net Spain Basic £8.50 10GB 7 Days Standard £15 20GB 14 Days Premium £20.50 300GB 30 Days USA Basic £8.50 5GB 10 Days Standard £15 20GB 14 Days Premium £22 Unlimited 30 Days BetterRoaming Spain Basic £3.19 1GB 7 Days Standard £20.29 20GB 30 Days Premium none none none USA Basic £2.29 1GB 7 Days Standard £18.19 20GB 30 Days Premium none none none easySim.global Spain Basic £2.99 1GB 7 Days Standard £17.99 20GB 30 Days Premium £36.99 50GB 30 Days USA Basic £3.49 1GB 7 Days Standard £23.99 20GB 30 Days Premium £43.99 50GB 30 Days Sparks Spain Basic £2.60 1GB 60 Days Standard £11 15GB 60 Days Premium £35.60 50GB 120 Days USA Basic £3.30 1GB 60 Days Standard £13.60 15GB 60 Days Premium £44.50 50GB 120 Days * Sim Local: Unlimited plan goes at full speed for first 10GB used per day, plus unrestricted hotspot and tethering. * WorldSIM: Also offers eSIMs with calls and texts included. Can also buy eSIM for multiple countries at extra cost. Unclear if any limits apply to their “unlimited” plans, but we believe there is a Fair Usage Policy (FUP). * Breeze eSIM: You get full speed with up to 5G mobile support for 1GB of usage in any 24 hour period, “thereafter your data speed will be reduced and will reset on the next 24h period“. * Saily: Unlimited plan includes 5GB/day of usage without a speed limit, then unlimited data at speeds of up to 1Mbps. All plans also have a 30-day activation period, so if you get a plan today and don’t activate it until a month has passed, then it will be activated automatically. * Holafly: As mentioned earlier, Holafly’s Fair Usage Policy (FUP) states: “If the operator estimates the usage of more than 90GB of data in a month, they may temporarily reduce the speed to between 256-1024KB to avoid affecting other users.” We think they mean Kbps rather than KBps, thus the speed cap would be between 0.25Mbps and 1Mbps. * Nomad: Unlimited data speeds will be throttled to 1Mbps after 2GB of data is used. eSIMs will automatically be activated after 60 days if you don’t activate them sooner. * Airalo: Unlimited data plans will reduce your connection speed to 1Mbps after using 3GB of data on one day — this would only apply until the next day of your validity period. Overall, there’s quite a lot of variation between the different providers, countries and plans, although World SIM did seem to come out as one of the cheapest in our limited sampling. On the other hand, we struggled to find any details to clarify what sort of restrictions, if any, applied to their “unlimited data” plans.

Mobile provider 1p Mobile, which is a virtual network operator (MVNO) on EE’s UK platform, appears to be experiencing yet another protracted outage of its website and linked online account management features today. On top of that the operator has also confirmed that their phone lines are down too.

SpaceX appears to have quietly revised the ‘Pause Mode’ for their Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite-based Starlink broadband service, which means that customers now risk being hit by a huge demand surcharge if they try to unpause their connection in a congested network area. Previously such users were excluded.

Business ISP Gamma Communications has confirmed recent speculation that they’re currently engaged in preliminary talks with several potential bidders (currently unidentified), which could result in a takeover of the UK telecoms and IT provider. As of today, the provider has a market capitalization of £752.88m.