Study of Six Major European Countries Finds Only UK Saw Broadband Prices Rise
A recent study by telecom analyst firm Tarifica, which examined the change in fixed broadband ISP pricing between 2023 and 2025 across six major European countries (Italy, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands), has found that prices fell in every country except the UK where they rose by 7.86%.
In fairness, when viewed across a much larger country sample, past studies have tended to indicate that the UK normally does pretty well when it comes to the issue of broadband pricing and affordability. This is often a reflection of our highly competitive market, particularly since the introduction of alternative networks that have driven down pricing to steal market share away from the incumbents of Openreach (BT) and Virgin Media.
The new study claims to have checked the residential packages of “every broadband provider” in each country – those able to offer plans with download speeds of at least 100Mbps with unlimited usage. The results were then sorted into four consumer profiles, separated by download speed – 100Mbps+, 250Mbps+, 500Mbps+ and 1000Mbps+.
Advertisement
The results show that almost all the countries, except the UK, saw a fall in their prices, with Spain, the Netherlands, and France all seeing double-digit drops in their average price (these reductions were seen across every user type). By comparison, the UK was already the third most expensive market in 2023, but with its average price increasing and the declines in price from Germany and the Netherlands, the country ended up ranked as the most expensive for consumer broadband service by Q1 2025.
The increase in the UK is said to have been “driven exclusively by the rise in cost for 1000+Mbps plans“, where the country’s average price is said to have increased by “more than 50%“. For its other offer types, the country did see modest price declines, just “not enough to offset the price increase for these super users“.
The results are somewhat questionable and lead us to suspect that the study may not have actually included the results from “every” ISP as claimed (there are around 200 domestic-focused ISPs in the UK). ISPreview similarly conducted a study of 1Gbps package prices earlier this year (here), which looked at the change from 2022 to 2025 and found that monthly pricing had broadly fallen due to competition; we also made our data public.
Advertisement
In addition, there are a few caveats to consider above, such as with the fact that Tarifica seems to be lending too much weight in their overall average to the perceived increase in 1Gbps pricing. This is an issue because only a small portion of users will actually be adopting 1Gbps tiers, thus the study should ideally be weighting such tiers to have a lower impact on the general average.
The study also noted that only 38% of the UK ISPs sampled actually offered 1Gbps packages (in 2023 this figure was just 25%), which they say compares with c.80-100% in the other countries (where full fibre (FTTP) networks have been around at scale for several years longer). However, the figure of 38% for 2025 is questionable, as most of the ISPs we monitor have already introduced such a tier. We’d be curious to see Tarifica’s data for this.
The other catch is that the study is only considering the prices offered to new customers, which will always benefit from temporary first term discounts and special offers. But since most consumers do tend to remain with their ISP post-contract, at least for a few years, then to get the full picture we’d probably need to examine the higher prices that loyal customers pay too (not an easy thing to do as many ISPs are not transparent about this).
Overall, it’s an interesting piece of research, but one that should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. Pricing is a notoriously difficult thing to pin down and correctly reflect.
Advertisement
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.
Two reasons for that,
– higher inflation,
– most of those countries either already have full fibre networks, don’t have dozens of altnets building on debt, have all altnets already consolidated.
The opposite is true
Altnets brought the price down otherwise you would still have BT selling 1gb for 60 quid
I am aan ltnet customer and I am paying £59, because altnets can also have a monopoly. Vide OFNL on new estates.
What do they classify as 1Gbps? Most Gigabit plans in this country are classed as 900Mbps due to the fact you’ll never get a gigabit through a gigabit ethernet connection.
Most of the ISPs do still promote those packages as “gigabit” or “1Gbps” and then usually make reference to 900Mbps as an average speed below. But it’s a fair question, although these days a lot of ISPs do now ship such packages alongside routers with 2.5Gbps Ethernet ports.
Zzoomm says on their page,. Advertised speeds are achievable with a wired connection. Wi-Fi speeds may vary and not all user devices are capable of achieving maximum speeds over Wi-Fi.
so their 1Gbit is 1Gbit, which makes sense since they can offer 2300Mb/s. I am on the 500Mb/s plan and get over that.
But you are right, some, mainly on Openreach networks, don’t seem to go to a gigabit, I presume because for most part that is the max their network can do, so with overheads.
Not surprised about the UK being more expensive, it is in most things compared to a lot of countries. so far behind
You also have to look at the average pay as well.
I’m also with Zzoomm on the 1gig plan and get 1089Mbps and 1147Mbps. I did downgrade from the 2gig plan which has since moved to 2.3gig i see. I did notice that they have recently upped the price on most plan. My 1gig is 39.99 a month while in contract but it 48.00 a month when it runs out next year if I stay with them.
@Big Dave,
FANNY_VERIFY says that Virgin Media gives at least 1.2gbps profile for their GIG1 service, even on their legacy HFC network and covers a significant amount of the population. Users on VM can have a HUB5 connected to their own router that has 2.5gbps or better ports along with WIFI 6/6E or WIFI 7.
FANNY_VERIFY also states that ALTNETS give as close to maximum overhead of GIG1 (circa 940mbps) and usually upload as well as download.
I will be retired soon and quit UK for good. Fed up of UK rip off all times. Considering moving to Spain.
You wouldn’t qualify to move to Spain, Phil. You’d lose your disability benefits, your state pension wouldn’t go up each year and with all that you probably don’t have the income and assets to move there.
Wasn’t aware you had a job to retire from so congratulations on that 🙂
Spain is great but with Brexit things have become more difficult for people wanting to move there. If you can do it though Spain offers fantastic lifestyle and still is not anywhere near as expensive as the UK.
Just another example of Rip-Off Britain, not forgetting Northern Ireland as it’s not included in this case! Britain being England, Scotland, Wales and associated islands.
‘The results were then sorted into four consumer profiles, separated by download speed – 100Mbps+, 250Mbps+, 500Mbps+ and 1000Mbps+.
The increase in the UK is said to have been “driven exclusively by the rise in cost for 1000+Mbps plans“, where the country’s average price is said to have increased by “more than 50%“.’
TL;DR the release of faster, more expensive packages in the highest speed bracket hugely increased the average prices of packages in that bracket.
I do wonder how other countries make money, that charge a set fee, for all packages and just have different setup fees for the different speed, I’m shocked it works for them but as always the few countries that do this also have other things better than the UK -.-
Is there a comparison of prices for similar packages?
I wonder why? We must be paying for the multiples of unnecessary infrastructure many ISPs are still building
Joyce,
FANNY_VERIFY says that the ALTNETS are financed by private investment, hence accrued debt (that is managed by their financial investment plan)
Another potential flaw is that it looks like this is denominated in Euros but depending when the sample was taken in each year this could account for a nearly 9% price difference. Did they account for it?
Just part of Rip off Britain, I suppose we should be used to it by now, also, if it’s linked to inflation, especially with this current government, we’re doomed.
Thank you BT and Vermin Media for our position 🙂
The company that first brought you “inflation + 3.9%” price increase per year to in-contract customers, to news this week of £4 per year price increase on any new customer or re-contracting customers. VM waited a while then thought, what the heck let’s join them but instead of £3 per year, we will push ti further to £3.50. Then the BT news came this week of £4 from BT. Guess what the VM response will be? Yip, £4.50 at least…..you wait for the news article, it’ll come……
Always great to hear about BT services and zzoomm again.