Ofcom Connected Nations Report 2025 – Fixed Line

The latest Connected Nations report has been published by Ofcom and its a long read, but on a cold wet day with snow in some parts of the UK its an ideal day to scroll through on your tablet in a cosy chair.

The key figures from the sixty page document are:

• Ofcom states full fibre available to 23.7 million UK residential premises
• Gigabit coverage in the 12 months to July 2025 has grown four points to 87%
• Take-up of full fibre across the UK is at 42% of the premises able to get it, up 7 points in the last year
• Average download speeds are rising, up by 28% in the last year
• Data usage continues to grow but at a slower rate of up 10% in the year
• Starlink satellite take-up running at 110,000 subscribers across the UK
• Figure of 44,000 premises unable to get decent broadband remains unchanged

Ofcom Connected Nations report and thinkbroadband coverage data
Area	Full fibre Ofcom July 2025	Gigabit Ofcom July 2025	Full Fibre tbb 26th July 2025 Residential	Full Fibre tbb 31st July 2025 All Premises	Gigabit tbb 31st July 2025 All Premises	Current Full Fibre tbb 19th November 2025 All Premises
England	79%	88%	79.86%	79.37%	88.99%	81.40%
Northern Ireland	95%	96%	96.8%	96.53%	96.88%	96.67%
Scotland	71%	81%	71.85%	71.30%	82.49%	73.74%
Wales	78%	81%	79.65%	79.16%	82.21%	81.69%
UK	78%	87%	79.63%	79.14%	88.31%	81.18%

There are still differences in the figures we track and what Ofcom publish, largely this are down to the rounding used in the Ofcom publications and data gathering times. The timing of data gathering is highlighted when you look at our Wales figures from 30th June 2025 when full fibre was available to 78.6% of premises in the country but at the end of July this had risen to 79.2% when quoting to 1 decimal place. We have since the last Connected Nations report confirmed that some footprints from smaller networks that are on our maps are missing from the Ofcom datasets.

The Ofcom report while replicating a lot of the work we do, does use its data gathering powers to give insights into the take-up of services which is something investors constantly worry about.

The Ofcom estimate of 42% for full fibre take-up across the UK is not dissimilar to our analysis from speed test results that in Q2 2025 indicated 39% of speed tests were made using a full fibre connection.

Take-up does vary a lot and as we know from providers reports is also affected by time, i.e. it can take a couple of years to get decent take-up, due in part to people being locked into contracts and loyalty to brands that means many wait for others to make the switch and test out new companies.

The Ofcom estimates when broken out into rural and urban show also how take-up varies based on where people live too.

	Total Take-up	Urban Take-up	Rural Take-up
England	41%	39%	54%
Northern Ireland	62%	60%	65%
Scotland	43%	40%	60%
Wales	49%	47%	58%
UK	42%	40%	56%

A big reason full fibre take-up is probably lower in urban areas is that these have had Virgin Media HFC/coax services for many years and people may feel tied in due to the TV packages. In rural areas when full fibre appears it may be the first decent broadband option in terms of reliability and speed. The days when 24 or 30 Mbps was sufficient for a household with 2 or 3 people are largely in the past, as multiple people will be streaming TV and therefore speeds of 100 Mbps or more will be preferred.

In terms of what speeds people buy with full fibre the mix is changing and with the latest wave of £30 or less for Gigabit packages when the 2026 Connected Nations report is published we expect to see the patterns change.

• Take-up of less than 100 Mbps advertised download speed packages in 2025 was 17%
• Packages in the 100 Mbps to 300 Mbps range 38%
• Packages in the 300 Mbps to less than 900 Mbps range 24%
• Packages in the faster than 900 Mbps range was 21%, four points higher than 2024