The 2023 vs 2022 Top Fastest UK Mobile and Broadband ISPs

Next we’ll examine how some of the more established alternative full fibre (FTTP)  network providers (AltNets) – those building their own separate broadband networks – perform when compared with the mainstream national players. Take note that Cityfibre doesn’t have an entry because they’re supplied via various ISPs (e.g. Vodafone, Zen, Giganet, TalkTalk) and we can’t easily separate the data for them from other networks.

Otherwise, the following providers don’t suffer from the same performance woes as copper or hybrid fibre networks, thus we only focus our results on the top 10% (fastest) connections, which in most cases will reflect those consumers who take the fastest gigabit tier(s) available. The caveat is that these scores will still be heavily impacted by the same issues as mentioned earlier (slow Wi-Fi, local network congestion, take-up etc.).

The main changes this time around reflect our decision to remove LightSpeed Broadband, due to a lack of data, and the addition of BeFibre, Lit Fibre and Ogi to the table.

Full Fibre Altnets by Avg. Download (2023 vs 2022)

As before, it’s wise not to read too much into speed fluctuations above because the faster you go, the more obvious the caveats of web-based speed testing become. In addition, some provider’s, such as toob, only sell a 1Gbps package (i.e. the results aren’t impacted by users on slower tiers) or may have fewer customers (i.e. greater fluctuations in the data), which means true apples-to-apples comparisons are tricky to achieve.

We intend to keep expanding this table as AltNets grow, which will in turn result in more data, but most of these providers are clearly still delivering excellent performance. AltNet ISPs listed with “no data” for 2022 are all new additions.

Finally, one of the biggest improvements this year comes from one of OFNL’s headline ISPs, Seethelight, which suggests that their relatively recent introduction of a new 900Mbps tier is already seeing some strong take-up.

The Fastest Mobile Operators

Mobile performance remains a difficult technology to study because end-users are always moving through different areas (indoor, outdoor, underground etc.), using different devices with different capabilities and the surrounding environment is ever changeable (weather, trees, buildings etc.). All of this can impact signal quality, and that’s before we even consider differences in network (backhaul) capacity or spectrum ownership.

Suffice to say that studies of mobile broadband speed are inherently open to variation, but the top networks often tend to be those with a combination of the best 4G or 5G coverage, a good amount of radio spectrum and the most advanced technologies.

Average Mobile Download Speeds – 2023 vs 2022

Average Mobile Upload Speeds – 2023 vs 2022

Overall, the average download speed of the four primary mobile operators was 44.05Mbps (up from 41.47Mbps in 2022) and the average upload speed hit 10.65Mbps (up from 7.55Mbps). Despite the mild improvement, it’s still clear from the results above that the past year has been a bit of a mixed bag, with both O2 and Three UK actually seeing a fall in downstream performance.

On the flip side, all of the operators improved their upload performance and EE even doubled last year’s result, although at the time of writing we’re still not quite sure why they returned such a dramatic outcome – it will be interesting to see if this holds up for the next biannual update in mid-2024.

We should point out that existing 5G networks remain hobbled by issues of limited coverage and legacy 4G services, although the gradual introduction of Standalone 5G (SA) networks may start to change that in the coming years (this will particularly improve upload and latency performance). Ofcom’s plan to auction off more 5G spectrum in the mmW bands – 26GHz and 40GHz – is another event to keep an eye on (here).

On top of that the proposed merger between Vodafone and Three UK may be impacting their 5G roll-out plans (we haven’t seen a big coverage improvement this year), which may change once the deal is either approved or rejected by regulators.