Which? Survey Criticises Virgin Media and Sky Broadband for Connectivity Woes
Consumer magazine Which? have summarised some of the results from their latest online study of UK broadband connection issues, which surveyed 5,235 people in December 2025 and January 2026. The results praised Zen Internet, while criticising Sky Broadband (inc. NOW TV) and Virgin Media for poor performance and connection problems.
Overall, the survey found that the vast majority of broadband customers (91%) had experienced at least one issue with their service in the past year, although not all of these will have been caused by their chosen internet provider (issues with local Wi-Fi signals, power cuts and router configurations may also play a role, among other things). Lest we forget that most consumers have yet to upgrade to modern full fibre (FTTP) connections.
The survey reported that 28% of respondents regularly experienced slow download and upload speeds, while 25% said they suffered “very slow” speeds, 23% reported experiencing “frequent connection dropouts“, 21% said they had suffered problems with video calling and 15% reported having “frequently” experienced connection dropouts lasting longer than an hour over the past year.
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The survey then attempted to identify some of the best and worst broadband ISPs for each of these issues, although as usual Which? only provides a very limited selection of headline examples and so we don’t get the full context (hint: they want you to buy their magazine to get that, naturally). But needless to say, Zen Internet was found to be the “Best Provider” in every area, while NOW Broadband (NOW TV – part of Sky), Sky Broadband and Virgin Media all found themselves in the “Worst Provider” table, often on several occasions.
Best and Worst UK ISPs for Broadband Connection Issues
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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