The steady acceleration of the UK’s fixed broadband market that has been ongoing for the past five years could be coming to an end after research from Point Topic revealed a levelling off of the market for internet service providers (ISPs) and network supplier metrics during the second quarter of 2025, even though leading firms Openreach and CityFibre enjoyed a fruitful three-months.
The study found that total fibre-to-the-business/home/premises, curb (FTTB/H/P, FTTC), DOCSIS 3.1, DSL, fixed wireless access (FWA)and satellite retail and wholesale connections saw a very slight decrease during the quarter, now standing at an estimated 28.91 million, 10,000 fewer connection than in the previous quarter and 70,000 fewer than at the same quarter in the previous year.
The fixed broadband market saw around 14,000 net broadband subscriber losses compared with approximately 88,000 net losses in Q1 2025, showing, said Point Topic, that the market has firmly reached the saturation point.
Retail and business FTTB/H/P connections from all providers reached an estimated 11.03 million at the end of Q2 2025. Retail business connections were found to have reached an estimated 1.96 million at the close of the quarter, up slightly from 1.87 million in the previous quarter. FTTC connections dropped to 577,000 from 737,000 in Q1 2025. FTTP connections increased to 950,000 from 686,000.
Drilling deeper, the study of ISPs found that the quarter ended 30 June 2025 saw DSL connections dropping by 12% annually to total 1.47 million; FTTC reducing by 5% reaching a total of 11.10 million; and FTTB/H/P lines increasing 8% increase in uptake, totalling 11.03 million.
In terms of providers, BT broadband division Openreach was the standout with a record 566,000 full-fibre net additions, bringing its FTTP subscriber base to 7.09 million.
BT’s Consumer division, which includes business, saw positive growth again for the second consecutive quarter with 11,000 net broadband additions to reach 8.22 million – compared with only 4,000 in the previous quarter. Its FTTP base added 212,000 connections to reach 3.66 million, of which Consumer 3.4 million and Business 0.26 million and an increase of 32% year on year (YoY).
Set to be further bolstered by an extra £2.3bn in funding, CityFibre’s connections increased by 69,000 to reach 650,000 during Q2 2025, with an overall penetration rate of 16%. In its most mature markets, take-up rates are around 40%.
For the other major ISPs, the research noted that Vodafone saw strong gains with around 44,000 broadband net additions, but by contrast Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) had a tough quarter reporting 51,000 losses. These were followed by Sky’s estimated decrease of 12,000 connections and TalkTalk seeing another quarter of losses of around 20,000 connections.
The survey also found that during the second quarter, independent broadband providers (altnets) continued to focus on subscriber take-up and saw 205,00 net additions from 169,000 additions in the previous quarter. The survey estimated Altnets total consumer broadband FTTB/H/P subscriber base reached 2.96 million, up 41% YoY. Altnets’ FTTP connections increased by 21.3% during the quarter, with 205,000 net additions.
Point Topic predicted that Openreach will see the broadband market stabilising over the next year as CityFibre’s round of funding will see it consolidating the altnets to a wholesale-based model. Further organic network expansions will likely be reduced as Openreach nears its 25 million premises passed target by 2026.
