Ofcom Publish 9th Annual Report into UK Net Neutrality Issues

Ofcom has published their 9th annual (2026) monitoring report into the Net Neutrality guidelines, which were originally established to prevent unfair blocking or slowing of access to legal websites and internet services by broadband ISPs and mobile operators. Overall the UK telecoms regulator has “not identified any significant cause for concern“, although EE may have an issue with tethering restrictions.

The original rules meant that service providers couldn’t easily impose excessive restrictions against internet traffic and should treat almost all of it equally (i.e. they should avoid favouring specific services, such as by blocking or slowing access to rivals). However, there were some exceptions to this, such as when providers need to impose general traffic management, parental controls, court ordered blocks or for security measures (e.g. anti-virus/spam filtering) etc.

Ofcom then further softened these guidelines in 2023 (here), such as by allowing providers to offer premium quality retail packages (e.g. those with tweaks to deliver lower latency) and support for specialised services so that providers can deliver specific content and applications that need to be optimised (e.g. a limited allowance for network slicing on 5G mobile).

The regulator’s 2023 review also clarified some previous conflicts around the issue of zero rating (i.e. free mobile data), such as for cases where mobile operators excluded some websites giving a social benefit from being included in a customer’s billed data usage (e.g. those offering public health info. and support during the COVID-19 pandemic).

Suffice to say the latest report found no significant problems with any of the related monitoring areas. “We have not identified any significant cause for concern with respect to ISPs’ approaches to net neutrality, which were mostly unchanged from last year,” said the regulator.

Ofcoms Findings for Last Year (Net Neutrality)

The quality of fixed and mobile internet access services continues to improve as technology develops:

• The availability of the latest technologies for fixed broadband and mobile has increased since last year. As of July 2025, full fibre availability has grown from 69% to 78% of residential premises, and 5G coverage outside premises from at least one mobile network operator (MNO) has extended from 90%-95% to 94%-97% (very high to high confidence levels).

• Fixed broadband performance has improved, with average speeds growing by 28% (July 2024 to July 2025), primarily due to the increase in availability and take up of full fibre and gigabit-capable services. Also, more consumers are taking up 5G services and thus benefitting from the improved performance of this technology.

• Our analysis of ISPs’ network utilisation reports indicates that incidents of congestion on fixed networks remain rare, and while they happen more often on mobile networks, congestion is generally infrequent.

We have not identified any significant cause for concern with respect to ISPs’ approaches to net neutrality, which were mostly unchanged from last year:

• The ISPs continued to implement some traffic management measures on an ongoing basis, including blocking access to illegal content and age restricted content for under 18s and blocking or redirecting malicious traffic. In addition, we saw a slight increase in the use of exceptional traffic management, with a few ISPs using targeted measures to manage congestion during particularly busy peaks in traffic.

• Some mobile ISPs continued to offer a limited number of commercial zero-rating packages which were largely the same as last year. This included two open offers that zero-rated access to applications within a particular category of content (e.g. social media) and two closed offers zero-rating a specific service or select group of applications.

• As per last year, the key differentiator for fixed broadband retail packages was speed, while for mobile it was data allowance with some mobile ISPs also providing different speed tiers. Similarly, many of the specialised services described in last year’s report were provided again this year, specifically a drone service, multicast and voice prioritisation services.

• Some ISPs used the additional clarity and flexibility provided by our guidance to offer innovative new services. One ISP offered premium packages with a network priority boost triggered during congestion, while another has recently introduced a Speed Boost add-on which prioritises a customer’s traffic when activated. We also saw one ISP undertake a non-commercial trial of 5G slicing. However, as per last year’s report, ISPs have not made major changes to their approaches to net neutrality based on our guidance.

• We are engaging with one ISP in relation to its tethering policy.

The reference above to a ‘Speed Boost‘ add-on reflects the one that Vodafone recently launched (here), although we have seen others with a similar sort of service. Ofcom also mentions that they’re “engaging with one ISP in relation to its tethering policy“, which in reading through the report appears to reflect a concern with how EE (BT) restricts tethering (i.e. sharing your mobile broadband connection with other devices) of more than 12 devices on a regular basis.

“As explained in our guidance, restrictions on tethering are likely to be incompatible with the requirement on ISPs to treat all traffic equally irrespective of the terminal equipment used. We are engaging with EE on this matter to ensure its polices are fully aligned with the Regulation,” said Ofcom.