Virgin Media O2 UK Broadband Users Fall by 5.6k as Full Fibre Build Stalls UPDATE
Network operators Virgin Media and O2 (VMO2) have today published their latest Q1 2026 results and revealed that their gigabit broadband network increased its UK coverage by just 6,400 premises in the quarter (down from 115.1k in Q4), while related consumer customers fell to a total of 5,446,100 (down by -5.6k in Q1 2026). VMO2’s total mobile base also fell to 46.44m.
The results confirm that Virgin Media and nexfibre’s combined UK broadband network now reaches a total of 18,796,600 Homes Serviceable (up from 18,790,200 in Q4). As before, the vast majority of the new quarterly network build has come from nexfibre’s full fibre lines (accounts for over 2.6m premises of the total coverage), although the recent impact of Telefonica’s strategic review did disrupt their plans (here and here).
The results reveal that a total of 8.7 million Virgin Media and nexfibre premises (footprint) are now covered by FTTP lines (XGS-PON and RFOG), which is up from nearly 8.3m in Q4 2025. This figure also factors in Virgin Media’s ongoing upgrade of existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) areas to FTTP (they’re eventually aiming to convert all of Virgin’s existing HFC/coax and RFOG lines to XGS-PON).
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Just for context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally established the £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which originally aimed to deploy an open access full fibre (FTTP) network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media’s own network of 16m+ premises. But this roll-out has now effectively stalled, although it will pick up again a bit as part of the Netomnia acquisition (here), albeit more due to FTTP upgrades in HFC areas than new coverage.
Nexfibre Rollout Progress
Q1 2026 = 6,400 Premises
Q4 2025 = 115,100 Premises
Q3 2025 = 139,300 Premises
Q2 2025 = 114,900 Premises
Q1 2025 = 165,000 Premises
Q4 2024 = 485,500 Premises
Q3 2024 = 281,100 Premises
Q2 2024 = 295,300 Premises
Q1 2024 = 194,000 Premises
Q4 2023 = c.299,000 Premises
Q3 2023 = 250,800 Premises
Q2 2023 = 175,500 Premises
Q1 2023 = 107,800 Premises
Q4 2022 = 24,000 Premises
Elsewhere, Virgin Media has long stopped giving any solid figures for their Pay TV (video) base, but their mobile base has declined this quarter, primarily driven by moderate losses in their consumer and business segment. Speaking of which, O2’s contracted mobile base suffered a net reduction of 61,500 in Q1 (not as bad as the -164,800 they lost in Q4 2025 – that one was due to price hikes).
VMO2 Q1 2026 UK Customer (Connection) Figures
5,446,100 Consumer Broadband – (down from 5,451,700 in Q4 2025)
46,446,500 Mobile inc. Wholesale – (down from 46,739,900)
On the financial front, VMO2 reported total revenue of £2,390.1m in Q1 2026, which is down from £2,556.9m last quarter.
Lutz Schüler, CEO of VMO2, said:
“This year is all about navigating a turbulent market landscape while investing, where the conditions are right, to maximise opportunities, future-proof our networks and lay the foundations to build long-term customer trust, profitability and cash generation. Our first quarter performance is very much in line with our full year guidance.
With a clear customer focus and underpinned by more than half a billion pounds of investment in Q1, we have started the year delivering against our core strategy through the launch of O2 Satellite, a first in Europe; expanding our 5G Standalone footprint to be the largest in the country; making continued improvements in customer service and satisfaction; and expanding our fibre footprint to almost 9 million premises.
We’ll continue to remain focused on delivery in all three of our business areas – consumer, B2B and wholesale – while transforming for future success.”
Despite suffering another quarterly decline in its broadband customer base, it’s worth noting that there are still positives to be found in their Q1 2026 results. For example, O2 can now claim to have the largest 5G+ (5G Standalone) mobile footprint in the UK, reaching 86% of the UK outdoor population.
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On top of that the recent launch of their new O2 Satellite service for customers (here), which made them the first UK mobile network to switch on direct-to-device satellite connectivity, was warmly received and is technically capable of increasing their 4G landmass coverage of the UK up to 95% (if you spend the extra £3 to add it).
In addition, complaints against Virgin Media’s broadband service are said to have decreased by 42% year-over-year, as further customer initiatives launched to help improve support. The ongoing work to acquire Netomnia should also boost the company’s total broadband base by around 500,000, assuming the deal completes. Check out the Q1 2026 VMO2 results here.
UPDATE 9:01am
VMO2 appears to have changed the KPIs for how they report broadband customers. So the previous Q4 2025 results gave a total for “Broadband Connections” of 5,687,600 and, in the small print, that included both consumers and commercial premises (businesses). But this time around (Q1 2026) the total is re-labelled as “Consumer Broadband Connections“, which comes out as 5,446,100, but this excludes commercial premises (the consumer-only total for the prior Q4 2025 was 5,451,700). As such the quarterly fall is -5.6k and we couldn’t find any details for their business broadband base.
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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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But it’s okay though, they’ll just buy the competition to restore their subscriber numbers.
Yeah, so they could face even more churn.
That was TalkTalk’s plan for many years. Look how that turned out.
I’m not surprised. Their teams are completely siloed and getting anything done requires the customer to do the legwork. After being a customer for 18 years, I gave up when we moved as the sales and install teams can’t talk to each other, except by putting messages on the customer account.
They are the complete opposite of what Virgin used to stand for.
Another factor is the abysmal pricing structure, especially once you are out of contract. Then the indian “tech support” and the resulting scammers. Non existent customers service and the overall cost.
For these reason I left. People should vote with their bank balance, VM is exceptionally poor for many reasons. They simply do not get it.
From what i have heard about their CS and also their prices I am not surprised and with a bit more competition, people are going to go for something that is better, either in pricing, service or both.
I have wondered a few times, what I would do if i only had the choice of Virgin or Openreach. I suppose I would go for an ISP on Openreach, more choice. I certainly have no interest in any other services Virgin provides like their TV.
Nexfibre, was going to come here this year until they pulled out, I would not have changed from where I am and yes before anyone says, there is every chance Virgin could buy out the provider I am with. I could get knocked over by a bus by then. Just saying, anything can happen as i found a few weeks ago.
Just got to go with the flow as they say, which for me is not easy.
> I could get knocked over by a bus by then. Just saying, anything can happen as i found a few weeks ago.
Did you get knocked over by a bus?
@Miss, no, I did not get knocked over by a bus.
OR are currently pulling fibre in the streets around me (W London) – as soon as that’s up and running, I’ll be running from VM as fast as possible…
To be fair to them their IP service has been reliable, but too expensive for what it is…
Years ago VM could do (and charge) what they wanted because – Openreach FTTC nowithstanding – they were the only game in town. That is not the case anymore, and as OR install FTTP and AltNet coverage increases, people are voting with their feet.
My own street was until January last year either VM or OR ADSL and was therefore about 90% VM customers. OR installed FTTP and, 15 months later, it’s probably a 50/50 split. Have we reached peak VM? As their expansion slows will their customer base continue to shrink? Possibly, unless they do something about it.
Indeed, around 2009 my street was also either VM or OR ADSL (subsequently OR FTTC, still not as good as VM). But Virgin stood still while Openreach, CityFibre and other altnets were pulling full fibre all around them. Best Virgin could do to match? Pull fibre to the front of your house, and even that’s outdated now.
Virgin stood still and got left behind; now they’re playing catch-up.
“…the ongoing work to acquire Netomnia should also boost the company’s total broadband base by around 500,000…”
For a short time, until they meddle with the service or pricing then a mass exodus. Customers who left VM would remember why, really well, for a long long time…
IIRC, the plan is that YouFibre, while being owned by VM, will continue to operate as a separate company (Like how GiffGaff operates – nexfibre will be taking ownership of the Netomnia network). I don’t expect VM messing around too deeply with YouFibre for a while.
My hope is that by the time VM do start messing around with YouFibre (be it merging with the VM brand or demanding the YF brand to increase profits), other ISPs will have signed up to nexfibre wholesale and/or Openreach deploy XGS-Pon in my area so I will have a safety net to fall back on.
(Either that or the CMA step in and block the deal… But I think I have a better chance of winning the lottery than that happening, and I don’t play the lottery!)
So the messing around might start with No IPv6, as Netomnia/You Fibre has it, but Nexfibre and VM can’t get their act together and live on IPv4. Then Netomnia offer higher speed packages than Nexfibre, so the high end may well go. Then there is option of static IP, that could go as VM only offer that on business packages through convoluted tunnelling and AFAIK, not at all on Nexfibre.
Gifgaff operates within VM’s model, in that there is no IPv6, fast speeds above 2gbps or static IP options. The saving grace for Giffgaff is 30 days contract and you get an ONT instead of a dumb Hub5x with VM that can’t even do ‘modem mode’ and costs more to run than an ONT.
Remember the very recent Voda/3 merger? Vodafone this week started meddling by introducing speed caps as reported on here.
Mark my words, if the CMA do not explicitly state clearly what cant be done, VM will be itching to change things to the VM/Nexfibre way, that’s why they bought it, knock out competition so you can carry on the VM way….Nexfibre is just a mask.
If i’m giving VM/Nexfibre the benefit of the doubt for a moment, the fibre network itself doesn’t have anything to do with the what happens at the IP level.
The Fibre and logical link layers (Layers 1 and 2) of the Netomnia network sit below layer 3 where IP sits. Its why Openreach can have providers on their network was does and doesn’t (currently) offer IPv6 and/or gc-nat
So YouFibre can exist in its current form as an ISP on the Netomnia/nexfirbe network while still allowing VM traffic on the same network (This won’t happen over night on the day the takeover completes)
But if nexfirbe are genuine in wanting the network to be a wholesale network that just so happens to also carry VM traffic and open the network up to other ISPs (in a similar way Openreach network carries BT/EE traffic as well as other providers) they will need to show they are not degrading the service capabilities of other ISPs also on the network.
Do I think that evenutally they will want to merge things such as bngs and customer services to reduce costs? Sure! But atm, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because otherwise I’ll go insane! But if they do start messing with things (such as ditching IPv6/Static IPs/etc) I’ll drop em in a heart beat, even if that means I have to go back to asymmetric speeds.
I am not surprised as VM are raising their customers prices well above inflation in mid-term
“O2 can now claim to have the largest 5G+ (5G Standalone) mobile footprint in the UK, reaching 86% of the UK outdoor population.”
We should stop reporting misleading stats like this. What is the /geographical/ coverage? That is what really matters. So the only way to access their 5G+ network is if you are in a populated area but not indoors? How is this helpful?
What’s the coverage like when I’m driving around? Or on a train? Or in an industrial/business park?
Exactly, I live on the edge of a town of approx 38K in Nottinghamshire. When O2 switched off 3G we were left with no signal! Swiftly moved to EE and the phone never drops off 5G.
A decade or so ago I was on O2 3G I think. Now the reception from 4g and 5G is best described as random here. Do not get a 5G signal at all near my neck of the woods. Live near the edge of a large city and reception is terrible.
Proud to have contributed to that broadband line loss number.
Ironically enough, Virgin’s service was more stable in the final year that I was using it than in the previous 4 years. I left because their customer service was terrible, and lied to us. We phoned up to cancel a new package we decided we didn’t want before it came into effect. They said it had been cancelled. Imagine our surprise when, a few weeks later, we were told the new package had come into effect. Took a lot of time to get our original contract back. We decided we were done when our contract came to an end, so we left.
Had CityFibre installed. Rock solid so far.
When Toob FTTP went live in my road I promptly ordered that same day, could not leave VM quick enough. I was 1 of 3 houses in my section of the road that went live on the first day of installs, the engineer said he had 2 others to do as well that day.
That just says a lot about VM and how bad their CS is and how poor value they have become.
VMo2’s 2025 results show that at 2022 HFC covered 13.8m premises with 2.4m FTTP (we know this is RFoG). At 2025 HFC covered 10.5m premises with 5.7 FTTP (RFoG + XGS-PON) and 2.6m from nexfibre. As VM’s plan (project Mustang) is to do HFC overbuild with fibre by end of 2028, it looks really tough to overbuild the remaining 10.5m HFC premises in just three years. I think there will be quite a mumber of HFC premises left to overbuild after 2028, including those requiring a lot of work, e.g. cables without ducts in place or MDUs.
TL:DR: Terrible CS as a result of MSPs. No longer being the only national provider with top speeds means they are going to continue to see shrinking customer numbers if they don’t fix thing things that cause customers to leave, stay away and recommned other ISPs to their friends and family.
I hate to say it but the loss of customers does not surprise me. When VM were the only game in most town for ultrafst connections comapared to DSL, if you wanted more than OpenReach based suppliers could squeeze out of their FTTC network you put up with the dire customer service and often over utilisation of the local VM network. But now OpenReach has FTTP, VM need to up their game. After 11 years with VM, I moved to Aquiss and I’ve only had to call them a couple of times, both becuase of a situation of my own making which they sorted almost instantly.
VMs customer service is so unbelievably bad not to mention the total lack of any actual technical support! There used to be a UK based team who would take calls transfered to them, alas that teams seems to have been put out to pasture leaving non-techcnical CS staff to read from a troubleshooting script! They can buy all the alt-nets they want but it’s not going to stop the rot. VM need to bring their CS back in house, I realise they are owned by a US firm who love off-shoring support to Managed Service Providers (MSPs) but honestly, it feels like that model has had it’s day in the B2C support space and I say that as someone who spent nearly 15 years working in the B2B MSP space. B2C is, in my opinion, too complex to try to maintain quality CS when using an MSP, they have high levels of staff churn, services are often delivered on tiny margins and much of the time, there is an element of shared serives when the dedicated team are busy (overflow) which leads to greater lack of quality. And as I said, add to that they are no longer the only network that can delivery in excess of 1Gbps, why would you chose a provider that is expensive, jacks up the price every year and generally does not make their customers feel wanted when you can pick an ISP on another network who refreshingly seem to care about their customers, have 12 month contracts rather than 18 or 24 month ones and even then barely have price increases year to year. Would I like to have symmetrical speeds? Yes but then that wasn’t available when I left VM and I suspect it will arrive on the OR network eventually. With VM hoovering up Alt-Nets and with talk of them opening up their network, if my ISP became available on their network and they had symmetrical speeds, would I move the connection to them if OR still only had asymmetrical speeds, I honestly don’t know. But for now, when friends ask for a recommendation of an ISP, I tell them to avoid VM like it’s radioactive and has the plague. – sorry for the diatribe!
Virgin’s symmetrical speeds on their FTTP network is an add-on that costs £6.
I get symmetrical speeds as standard on CityFibre.
VM must like ripping people off, I guess.
@Retro I get my addon for free, was never an offer at the time, it just randomly popped up, I wasn’t going to complain lol
Any UK company that deals with people financial details shouldn’t be allowed to outsource their customer service
We have Virgin outsourcing to India
Sky outsourcing to South Africa
Two of the worst countries for scams in the world and they’re selling customer details to other scammers.
Sick of it! Should be illegal to outsource
From my vantage point: VMO2 is owned by a non UK entity (US) Liberty Global and their pals at Telefonica (Spain) and their investor/partners. Nothing UK about this business to be frank.
It is also pretty obvious the business has been run into the ground in terms of innovation and expansion: lost the mantle of fastest speeds etc and now is playing second or third fiddle to some of the smaller players in certain areas ( no wonder it’s buying them out to save face and be able to limit damage) additionally and more worryingly, it is these two reasons which suggest VMO2 has a lot of deadwood type employees aka Management that need to be sent packing asap to ensure the business remains like its predecessor: a disruptor who kicked above its weight…now it’s getting buried under its own weight.
Virgin is consistently the cheapest broadband on the price comparison sites. I have gig 1 fibre for £24 a month. No price rise this year.
I could go for OR FTTP but for that price, it would be one of the 150MB speeds.
For the vast majority, that package outperforms FTTP.
To avoid confusion. That’s the commercial name Virgin use “gig 1 fibre” but the product is HFC cable broadband
i couldn’t get it for that price in September 2024, thats why i left virgin media
I don’t like there £4 price increase per year, higher than other companies
Rookie numbers. Sky loses that many broadband customers on a weekly basis. VMO2 might be second in subscriber count
Any else noticed how the newer VMO2 vans ( 2025 plates and above ) are not as bright and colourful as the older VM branded ones ones? Noticed that there is hardly any VM branding on them? More o2 branding is visible. I’ve seen some the other day and they have no identifiable Virgin branding at all. This is suggestive to me that in the very near future the Virgin branding is going to disappear from this company; it will be rebranded as entirely O2. This could be done due to the business critical need to attract other players to use VM02…a lot of these players are direct competitors of Vm. Makes sense to attract SKY and others by dropping VM branding altogether. The future of the VMO2 rests on acquiring the new players either by buying them out our letting them ride the network. I’m sure I’ve read somewhere that the investors for nexfibre etc will need debts paying off in chunks by 2030 ( please correct me here as I cannot recall exact numbers) if debts are to be paid then savings need to be made asap in this difficult time of expansion and investment whilst losing active users. Prices may drop to acquire larger footprint with newer customers etc but I think VM is on its last legs: the end of the empire is near. Any thoughts
It’s not on its last legs. But Virgin haven’t been part of VMO2 for a while. It’s simply a brand agreement. Which is expensive for Telefónica and Liberty Global to maintain.
O2 is already a well known brand. Telefónica have other brands as well.
IIRC Virgin were only the brand name when NTL bought out Virgin Mobile. Branson had a stake, I think at one point 20%. But that went went Liberty Global bought it, and eventually Telefónica agreed to buy 50% and form the joint venture. Which we know today as VMO2.
But yes the new vans are mostly white with VMO2 branding. But nothing like the old “grab life by the gigabits” and other branding with heavy Virgin influence.
It’s interesting reading people talking about VM’s customer service here. I’ve recently moved house and I’m trying to transfer my VM Business line to my new address and it’s been stuck for two and a half weeks waiting for the sales team to update my contract or something. No communication at all and when I call them they say they’ll call back and never do. I’ve never known such levels of incompetence. I’d be better off sending data packets via carrier pigeon.
Have a gander at the trust pilot reviews. Hilarious if it wasn’t so sadly serious
I have got 1 gb + netflix from VM for £28 pm total plus a £50 account credit. I am within the cooling period, will fight for the £4 mid contact increase waiver.
I worked for ntl many moons ago and I’m absolutely gutted how their behaviour over the past 10 years has been. I would say their golden era was just after the ntl Telewest merging when investment was reasonable and prices were competitive. There was a bit of humour, admittedly not always appropriate such as during the Sky carriage dispute when they pulled Sky News from air and renamed the EPG slot Sky Snooze.
My last experience was when I cancelled my service about 4 years ago fed up of continuous inflation busting price hikes. It took over half an hour and being passed between 6 different departments, none of them based in the UK, to cancel my service.
If I were in the CEO’s position my plan would be:
1. Stop all price increases for the next two years and advertise the heck out of this to attract new customers.
2. Promise the same for existing customers recontracting.
3. Introduce a loyalty bonus of 5 percent each year up to a maximum 20 percent discount.
4. Refer a friend bonus based on the package tier they take.
5. Wind down TV and phone operations, making streaming media the default, and recognise triple or quad play provision was a thing of the 2000s which isn’t suitable for today’s consumer demands.
6. Stop sweating HFC and aggressively replace it with fibre.
7. Commit to on shoring all call centre operations over the next three years and promote this as a commitment to investing in the British economy, fill them with apprentices who can become multi skilled learning both the call centre side and the physical engineering side.
8. Give notice to investors they can expect a loss over the next 2 years as a result of this rescue plan, take the hit because it will ultimately make the business more agile, leaner, and responsive to the UK market.
Will any of this happen? Almost undoubtedly not but I’m ever hopeful someone from the ET will read this and maybe think. Hope springs eternal.
Today the old VM Forum’s certificate expired & Firefox declined to display the frozen content.
I’m suspecting so much time has passed a replacement forum is beyond the abilities of Tata & TechM !
This doesn’t surprise me, VM need to sort their customer services and pricing.
I personally don’t think they will, I think personally this will be my last time with Virgin Media, i am bored with the contract dance.
As others have mentioned, I always used to be with Virgin due to OR/BT not giving decent speeds locally, now that’s not the case with FTTP, so I think Virgin really need to look at how they treat customers.
They have gutted their service operations in the UK and what’s happening now is a clear result of that.
I’m in my last 30 days with Virgin Media, fortunate to have been on their Nextfibre XGS-PON infrastructure. I’ve had zero issues for the last 18 months on a broadband only 1Gb/1Gb service.
I was paying £46 (after increases) a month and would probably be happy to renew at that, despite new customers getting it for £29.
Contacted someone on the chat and initially the same service was going to jump up to £90, but they had a really good deal where I could get it for £60 instead, same 1Gb/1Gb service. Their gig2 service to new customers is £50.
Goodbye Virgin Media, Hello EE 900 @ £25.99.