Study Claims 11 Million UK Broadband Users Unaware of Full Fibre Availability
A new study from Go.Compare, which combined ONS data with the results from a YouGov survey of 2,000 UK residents (conducted on 25th February 2025), has estimated that “up to” 11 million internet users could have access to full fibre (FTTP) broadband without realising. This is important as some ISPs offer free upgrades to the faster service.
According to Ofcom’s most recent spring coverage report (here), some 86% of UK premises are now within reach of a gigabit-capable broadband network, which falls to 74% for homes with access to a full fibre network (based on January 2025 data). Suffice to say that a significant majority of locations should already be able to order a true fibre optic connection to their home.
However, the new survey claims that 26% of broadband users didn’t know whether or not their home already had a full fibre connection, which means that some users could be on a full fibre connection already without realising and others may simply be confused – possibly due to the misleading way in which broadband packages have been sold in the past (e.g. promoting hybrid copper and fibre solutions like FTTC as “fibre broadband“).
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Interestingly, younger internet users were found to be “less likely” to know what kind of broadband connection their home has, with 37% of under-35s stating that they were unsure, compared to 21% of over-54s. Similarly, those who receive the worst service are the least likely to know their connection type. Of those who said they receive a very unreliable service, 40% did not know if their property had access to full fibre, compared to 23% of those who said their broadband is very reliable.
The issue of low awareness is not a new problem, particularly since many consumers often pay more attention to the advertised speeds they can get than the underlying technology being used. On top of that, today’s market reflects a bewilderingly complex array of rival network operators and hundreds of retail ISPs, all with differing network agreements and thus varying levels of availability. Trying to pick through all this while maintaining your sanity can be difficult.
On the other hand, the new survey found that 48% of respondents didn’t even know their existing broadband speeds, meaning they could be receiving slower speeds than promised without realising. In any case, we always recommend taking opinion surveys like this with a pinch of salt, as they don’t tend to provide for the most accurate representation of reality.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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On the other hand, if you badly want better connectivity, you certainly know you don’t have access to it!
ISP’s need to be more assertive on moving users across to FTTP. This means BT making wholesale prices keen so that they are actually a bit cheaper than FTTC, for the lowest equivalent tier on FTTP say 100mbps. Being a bit cheaper and a bit faster should help people move over more quickly.
@FANNY ADAMS: Discretionary connection discounts for their customers are entirely a matter for the provider, not Openreach.
I personally think telcomms companys could do more to advise the availability of fttp. As a ex retired BT engineer I observed openreach doing some work on the telegraph pole outside my house when I checked the BT website a few weeks later it advised that indeed fttp was available and with the help of EE staff was able to switch from virgin media to EE full fibre. My point is I had to make the inquiry to find out this virgin media were never going to tell me, and it appears neither was BT/EE.
Most people will only review what is available when their current contract comes up for renewal. Providers have probably found out already that simply advertising the new service availability will not be reflected in a significant change in the number of users switching.
Personally I’m not in the least bit surprised. You can educate people all you like but most of the time it goes in one ear and out the other. I think giving people a plethora of choices just causes confusion and in a lot of cases I think it makes them more likely to stick with what they’ve got rather than change.
I am shocked, I thought that ISPs would email, text, phone or snail people telling them it was available, I am pretty sure ISPs would love to get people to sign up for another 24-month contract.
A few people, I know, are well aware they can get FTTP, but just not interested.
On the other hand, they may be able to get more cash out of their existing customers who aren’t actively looking for better speeds by just letting them stay on their legacy (more expensive for less) product, preferably by rolling them onto their out-of-contract pricing after the minimum term.
I’m such a cynic ;o)
Certainly true for Community Fibre in my road, letters, door knocks, emails and Facebook. Happily snared me.
@Bedbod, you are bad as me and yes I know what you mean, but also I think FTTC costs the ISP more as well.
I have been trying to get one of my brothers to change to FTTP, but he don’t see the point, I know what he means, I was the same before I went to FTTP, he is with TAlk talk at the moment as they took over Shell customers. I would get him to go with Zzoomm, but they don’t do social tariffs, which is a shame.
The thing is for a large propotion of the country they just don’t need more than FTTC. There’s no compelling reason to make the switch when you can do everything you want to do almost instantly. It’s the same kind of thing as between HD and UHD, most people just don’t want or need 4k, 1080 is more than enough. There’s just no incentive to change – FTTC is fast enough for most people and the amount of people who “need” FTTP in a domestic setting is vanishingly small.
If it’s the same cost or more expensive it’s a ridiculously hard sell for most people as you just don’t need it for browsing, gaming, social media or streaming which is what the vast majority of UK use the Internet for. FTTC is simply “good enough” for most.
As a retired BT engineer I recently observed openreach working on the telegraph pole outside my property. A few weeks later I checked the BT website only to be advised that fttp was now available at my address. One phone call to later to EE I was able switch from virgin media, EE saw to everything, my point is if I hadn’t taken action I wouldn’t have been aware.
I see this everyday (I work for a rural Local Authority supporting residents in digital connectivity matters). The big reason I see is residents living in rural areas in particular have become so convinced that upgrades will never happen, that they have either made do, or have gone for altnet solutions (4G, Fixed Wireless, Satellite). When they are informed of upgrades to their connections, they often believe the ISP’s are selling false info, as this has happened in the past.
I dare say that for plenty of people, FTTC ‘just works’ and provides a broadband connection that works fine for them. And – not unsurprisingly given how it was promoted in the past – many such people will already think they have a fibre connection.
I agree, I think for most people it’s a case of ” if it ain’t broke why fix it”
True enough. Terrible marketing and lots of misinformation around what “fibre” means, so the confusion (outside geek circles) is hardly surprising. I always throw a wry smile every time I walk past my Openscreech street cabinet, still adorned with its “Fibre broadband is here” sticker – we’re in the biggest actual fibre desert for miles around 🙁
If it works for them then why should they care if it’s full fibre or not.
Yep, that was me, I had a 36Mb/s FTTC connection and it did the job, I had no need to go for FTTP, it was only because of Plusnet pushing and trying to push me to a 24-month contract, plus Zzoomm offering FTTP for £24 a month for 12 months that got me to move. The 500Mb/s they offered for that price was immaterial. It was a 12-month contract at a decent price. While I do pay more now, still cheaper than what I would be paying with Plusnet, FTTC or FTTP.
I suppose if your connection is fast enough you’re not going to be running speed tests. Or hanging around on Ispreview.
Another reason why people are not changing, is because of the Openreach policy of allowing customers to remain on 40Mbps and to regrade from 80Mbps in Stop Sell areas.
It’s easy to forget that this page is one big bubble for tech enthusiasts and those who come in touch with them. If we’d take ISPReview as a benchmark for the entire populace, the lack of uptake would be nothing short of shocking.
However, if you look at neighbourhood groups, a rather large percentage of internet-related help requests are “Can someone recommend an internet provider that isn’t shit”, irrespective of speed or, even more complex, underlying technology. 80Mbit is plenty to browse, check emails and watch streams.
I’d say that a good number of people don’t care about the what and how, so long as they can stream Netflix and their young ones can play Fortnite. You can market the next big breakthrough with as many buzzwords as you want to that audience, they’ll only switch if they a) are forced to, b) will pay much less, or c) had a really bad experience with their ISP.
Absolutely correct. The discussions that we have on these pages go over the heads of 99% of the population and as long as it passes the Netflix test that’s good enough for most people.
While 80mb internet is ok for some people, actually when you consider the fact that 99% of the 80mb internet users only get 30mb on a good day (being middle of the day in the middle of the week) and that a number of bill payers are of an age that they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a 5mb connection and a 1gb connection, the current status quo is not good enough.
These better technologies, being Full Fibre in this case actually offer a whole host of technological improvements over your “80mb connection”.
You state that it is good enough for you to watch TV while the kids stream videos and play Fortnight, well I would have to question your experience. Because it is so far from mine, a married father with 2 children.
We paid £70 a month for 70mb, which only got us the minimum required download speed of 25mb during reasonable hours (not middle of the day in the middle of the week when most people are at work), my wife, kids and myself would have endless issues with our connections, the kids would constantly experience lag in games, videos would be stuck on buffering regularly, large downloads took hours or even days to complete and even the most basic internet browsing saw annoying loading times with things popping onto pages while you were trying to make your way through.
Like I said, if you’re of a certain age or a technophobe who only really watches the occasional video online and browses the occasional website and don’t care if your kids have issues with the internet because “they should be lucky they even have internet”, then what we have now is fine in your opinion.
But then there’s the larger issue, the current technology is collapsing under the pressure. Without this new technology we would soon have, if not already gotten to a point where they whole system collapsed under the weight of the amount of data trying to go down those old copper lines. But we live in a much improved and advanced world where everything is interconnected. You may think there is no need or that it doesn’t make a difference, but it is simply your limited view and experience that lead you to that conclusion, not wider ranging, factual data.
Many services from the police, government, schools, sciences and hospitals have massively benefited from this new technology and the so called “buzz words” that the old tech simply couldn’t handle. Children are better educated (on average) than any generation before simply because they are not limited by the books and tools the schools can afford to buy. Hospitals can access mountains of research and data to diagnose patients without having to hunt through again, books and texts available in the hospital. Polica are able to access countless cameras, footage and photos as well as other data to help track down and capture law breakers. Scientists are able to work together in a way never before possible, sharing research and data to advance everything at speeds never before possible.
So yes, in your limited view this is nothing more than unneeded buzz and hype, but I can assure you that for the whole world, it is not.
Hogwash @Trixter
Pepole only care if there is a problem, anything more then 10mb most people won’t notice slow download
Your issue is likely because of line fault and potentially to many trying to use the bandwidth at the same time causing high ping (get a router with QOS and cap it to 5mb below your usual max download speed, upload about 2mb below your usual max, say 20/5)
Only people who notice it are the ones who need it and they will be the ones to upgrade first opportunity available everyone els doesn’t care
if it was working at 10 or 1000 they won’t notice it (90%+ of don’t care if it works they won’t change it) and if this was 2000 feedbacks it will be biased towards the uninformed or people who can’t actually get it yet
Full fibre, full fibre blah blah blah! My fibre to the cabinet is perfectly fast enough for my needs thanks.
Not surprised, most of them likely think their wifi is fine.
Because it usually is
Not surprising. It’s so hard to find if you have it available in your area, with most comparison websites not even having accurate data so forwarding you to an ISP’s website only to get told they are “not in your area yet”.
Also getting spammed by AltNets or legacy ISP’s saying it is available but again, you contact them and they tell you it is not. This happened to me relentlessly with Sky, they would send me multiple weekly letters and emails saying full fibre was available in my area, but when I called up they’d tell me it wasn’t.
All of this not helped by the fact that most AltNets use 100% PIA, expeccially in recent years, so have to skip out multiple roads or entire areas because the PIA is unusable, making it impossible to know where they have gone and where they haven’t.
Full fibre has been an absolute dumpster fire with the GOV refusing to regulate how the AltNets can/should work, councils giving them all grief and blaming the AltNets for the chaos on the roads, AltNets gatekeeping and refusing to work together, which the local authorities secretly loved even though they loved to make out that they didn’t.
All made worse by the GOVs funding scheme which turned out to be as big a scam as BREXIT or help to buy.
I do not think much reliance can be placed on a survey conducted on a 2,000-person sample. The error rate for a 2,000-person survey sample is claimed to be 2pc, but time and again we have seen that these surveys can be entirely wrong, with survey results at variance from the actual outcome of up to 15pc.
I would also add that customers will be made aware of new service options when their contracts come up for renewal. If an existing broadband user does not shop around prior to the contract renewal deadline, that will be on them.
Service providers rolling out new coverage will publicise the fact, but more often than not, this will be very costly and will only capture those that are probably already registered as “interested” while most prospective customers will wait for their current contract to expire before considering the options.