Point Topic release broadband affordability data

Point Topic has released its latest update to broadband affordability with data up to May 2025. In their affordability tracker, they have looked to work out the lowest price broadband tariff available that consumers can purchase in every postcode, irrespective of technology. The price range is quite vast, with the lowest option being a fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) service from Community Fibre offering 35Mbps download and upload speeds for £12.50 per month. Conversely, some postcodes find that the cheapest broadband package available is a 40Mbps download and upload fixed wireless access (FWA) for £38.32 from Voneus. This data shows the large disparity in service prices depending on where you live.

The data shows that cheaper broadband tariffs became available in slightly more small areas compared with 6 months ago; packages priced £10-£14.99 per month were available in 13.1% of small areas, compared to 11.9% in November 2024. It will not come as a surprise that the cheapest areas tended to be in more urban areas with high competition between providers. The most prevalent technology available was FTTP, and this was on average the cheapest widely available service with an average price of £23.17 per month, beaten only by FWA with an average of £18.36, but a much smaller availability of 4.3% of postcodes.

Social tariffs are also examined separately in the Point Topic report and the findings show that prices varied from £10 a month (Fusion Fibre) to £24 a month (BT). The cheapest option available to most small areas was Virgin Media O2’s £12.50 per month tarrif – this was available to 76.5% of small areas. Social Tariffs are available from at least one provider to 98.9% of postcodes which is a high coverage level, but does leave a gap that still needs to be closed so that the 1.1% of people are not disadvantaged.