ISPA Reveal First Finalists for the 2026 UK ISP Internet Industry Awards
The UK Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has today unveiled the shortlist of finalists for their 2026 annual industry awards event, which sees 70 separate organisations (broadband ISPs, network builders etc.) being nominated across 13 “revised categories“. But a few categories won’t be finalised until a little later.
The winners of the previous 2025 awards event were unveiled back in November last year (here), which among other things saw several altnet providers – including CommunityFibre, Lightning Fibre, and Wightfibre – taking home multiple awards. The former CEO of CityFibre, Greg Mesch, was also named as 2025’s Internet Hero for fostering one of the country’s largest alternative full fibre networks.
Otherwise, taking the early lead this year are Connect Fibre and Quickline, who both received 4 nominations. In addition, the 4th Utility (Rise), Cambridge Fibre, CommunityFibre, Exa, giffgaff, Gigaclear, KCOM, Lightning Fibre and Vorboss all secured 3 nominations each. As usual, the ISP categories will undergo several months of “technical testing”, while a good-sized panel of 13 judges will once again help to select some of the winners.
Advertisement
The full shortlist can be seen below, although it’s noted that the shortlist for the ‘Connectivity Champion’ and ‘Digital Inclusion Champion’ categories won’t be announced until September 2026, while nominations for the ‘Internet Hero’ category won’t open to the public until the autumn. The winners will then be announced on Thursday 26th November at Sheraton Grand London Park Lane hotel.
2026 ISPAs Award Shortlist
Best Rural ISP
InternetTY
Quickline Communications
Best Business ISP
Cerberus Networks
Community Fibre
Exa
Vorboss
Best Technology Partnership
Airties and Vodafone
Calix and GoFibre
Corero Network Security and UK Dedicated Servers
Gigaclear & Vyntelligence
Netgem & WightFibre
TalkTalk & Kraken
Best Consumer ISP (Under 100k Customers)
4th Utility | Rise
Quickline Communications
Best Consumer ISP (Over 100k Customers)
Community Fibre
Best Infrastructure Innovation
Connect Fibre
Vorboss
Best Voice Provider
Dial 9 Communications
Gamma Telecom
iNet Telecoms (Voipfone)
Microtalk Europe
Phonely
Sustainability Champion
Krystal Hosting
Best Security & Consumer Protection
Exa
Gigabit IQ
Phonely
Talk Straight/Schools Broadband
Best Customer Experience
4th Utility | Rise
Connect Fibre
Exa
Glide
ITS
Lightning Fibre
DEI Champion
KCOM
Vorboss
Women in Telecoms Group
Best Community Engagement
Community Fibre
Cambridge Fibre Networks
giffgaff
InternetTY
Quickline Communications
Best Customer Loyalty
4th Utility | Rise
Cambridge Fibre Networks
Gigaclear
Glide
Lightning Fibre
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.
« Freely Sees Surge in UK People Watching 2026 FIFA World Cup via Broadband
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person's legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.