Fibre Broadband Deals: Compare in November 2024

Name: Broadband Deals
Brand: Uswitch
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.7 (26866 reviews)

Our featured fibre broadband deal

Our selected fibre deal is Vodafone's Full Fibre 150 broadband package. This is a full fibre broadband connection that's available through both Openreach's fibre-to-the-premises network and the CityFibre broadband network, which means it's available to roughly two-thirds of UK homes.

For 150Mbps average speeds, it is priced extremely well considering there are other deals on offer at half of this speed for about the same price, sometimes higher. Vodafone is a very well established provider that has been highly regarded for great broadband performance, so it's a trustworthy option if you're looking for a new broadband deal.

This deal isn't as widely available as some of Vodafone's part-fibre broadband deals that have 97% coverage across the UK. This is because it requires a fibre-optic cable to be installed in the home as opposed to the standard copper phone line that most households are connected to.

Plus, like most other broadband providers, those who sign up to a new Vodafone broadband deal will see their monthly cost go up by £3 each April. That means you should expect two mid-contract price increases during the 24-month contract.

Exclusive

Vodafone Full Fibre 150

150

Mbps

average UK speed*

£26.00

a month

no setup cost

monthly cost will rise every April by £3

24 month contract

£95 voucher

More info

Fibre broadband explained

Fibre broadband is the most common and popular type of broadband connection in the UK, offering faster speeds and more reliability than older copper telephone lines.

But what exactly is fibre broadband, and how does it differ from other types? From internet speed to availability in your area to monthly prices and enticing add-ons, here's everything you need to know before you compare fibre-optic broadband deals.

What is fibre broadband?

Fibre broadband uses fibre-optic cables to connect your home, which carry data via pulses of light. These cables can transmit much more data in less time than copper wires, which means they're much faster and more reliable for a broadband connection than older networks.

Can I get fibre broadband in my area?

Fibre-optic broadband availability varies across the country, depending on which type of fibre broadband you're after. But almost everyone can get at least some form of it, and it will likely be fast enough for your needs.

There are two main types of fibre broadband connections, and the kind that you can get determines the speeds you can expect.

Part-fibre broadband

The most widely-available (and most popular) type of fibre broadband is part-fibre, which is also known as fibre-to-the-cabinet, or 'superfast' fibre.

It relies on fibre-optic cables from your provider's broadband exchange to the local cabinets on your street. But then the rest of the connection to your home uses the same copper wires as a standard ADSL connection.

This makes it several times faster than a purely copper connection, offering speeds between 30-70Mbps.

That's plenty of speed for most households these days, but it's still a lot slower than full fibre broadband. And as the years go on and our demand for internet increases, these speeds may start to feel quite sluggish too.

Superfast part-fibre is available to over 97% of UK premises, so there's a very good chance it'll be available to your home.

And unless you live in a busy household with lots of work meetings and high-quality streaming, its speeds should be just fine for your needs too.

Full fibre broadband

Full fibre uses fibre-optic cables all the way from the provider's exchange directly to your home, and therefore offers some of the fastest broadband speeds available.

On full fibre, you could still get speeds of 50-100Mbps for a reasonable price. But you could also opt for speeds of 1Gbps (1000Mbps) and beyond. And while most people don't really need speeds this fast right now, full fibre will still help to future-proof your home for decades to come.

It's only available to about 62% of UK homes at the moment, and its coverage is still inconsistent in each area of the UK too.

In fact, we found that Glasgow’s fastest street for broadband (which has full fibre) is a huge 866 times speedier than its slowest street¹. And in Brighton, its slowest street is only 1.2 miles away from its fastest full fibre street².

But for most households, this divide won’t be felt for too much longer. Full fibre is expanding very quickly across neighbourhoods all over the country. So if it's not available to your home just yet, it likely will be in the next couple of years.

Broadband postcode checker

See what internet speeds are available and compare prices for any postcode in the UK.

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What’s the difference between superfast, ultrafast and gigabit speeds?

Over the years, broadband speeds have been described by some slightly confusing terms. How much faster is ‘ultrafast’ than ‘superfast’? And how is ‘superfast’ used to describe some of the slowest speeds?

We'll explain the difference.

Superfast broadband

‘Superfast’ technically means an average broadband speed that returns between 30-80Mbps (megabits per second).

This speed is mainly attached to part-fibre broadband packages. When these connections started to roll out in the early 2010s, they were labelled ‘superfast’ because, at the time, they were the fastest connections a typical household could get.

They offered a significant speed boost to full-copper (ADSL) phone line broadband, which could only return average speeds of about 10Mbps.

Ultrafast broadband

‘Ultrafast’ means a broadband speed between 100 and 900Mbps. Ofcom states that it starts from 300Mbps, but we use 100Mbps because it’s easier to show which types of broadband can achieve these speeds.

Around the same time as the superfast broadband rollout, Virgin Media became the first provider to offer an ultrafast service of 100Mbps and above—thanks to its faster ‘coaxial’ cable, which needed to be installed at each customer’s property.

In the late 2010s, other providers started to compete with Virgin’s speeds, offering full fibre connections that plugged fibre-optic cables into UK residents’ homes for the first time.

5G broadband also started to roll out at this time, providing ultrafast speeds up to 300Mbps for specific urban areas of the UK.

Gigabit broadband

'Gigabit’ often refers to speeds of 900Mbps and above, but it mainly relates to rates of 1Gbps (gigabits per second). Once a speed reading hits 1000Mbps, it changes from megabits to gigabits, just like how a 1000MB file size is the same as 1GB.

Learn more about the difference with our bits and bytes explained guide.

Gigabit is the fastest broadband speed range that most homes can currently get, and it’s the target speed for the UK government, which wants 85% of homes to have gigabit internet by the end of 2025.

There was a big jump in gigabit broadband availability at the end of 2021 when Virgin Media introduced a new 1.1Gbps broadband package across its existing network. Since then, gigabit broadband has mainly grown at the pace of the full fibre rollout, but Virgin is now working to expand its network too.

Find out more fibre broadband stats with our dedicated fibre-optic stats page.

How much does fibre broadband cost?

Fibre broadband prices vary widely, depending on which provider you sign up for and the internet speed you want. Currently, there are widely available fibre deals for £20-21 per month, and some smaller providers charge as low as £17 per month for their entry-level fibre deals.

Nowadays, the slowest fibre speeds of 35Mbps are often about the same price as 10Mbps standard copper broadband. So even if you don’t use the internet very much, choosing a slightly faster package could work out better.

The fastest fibre speeds (900Mbps and above) will usually be the most expensive, with £50-60 monthly prices often attached to these packages. But these speeds are so fast they aren’t essential for any particular household at the moment.

Our expert says

“Where once, switching to a faster package involved a jump in bills, nowadays you can often upgrade your package at the end of your deal without paying more. So there’s never been a better time to review your options.

“Those unhappy with their broadband performance should take an online speed test to make sure they are getting the minimum speed guaranteed by their current provider, and also look online to see what they could get by switching to another provider.”

Ernest Doku, Broadband and mobiles expert

We display lots of low-cost fibre deals on our cheap broadband page. So, if you’re looking to get impressive speeds for a great price, you could find the right deal for you there.

Also, if you’re currently receiving Universal Credit or other government financial support, you could qualify for an even cheaper broadband social tariff.

Many providers offer fibre broadband for much lower prices than you’ll find on comparison sites, so if you think you’d qualify, check your eligibility for those first.

Check if you're eligible for a broadband social tariff

Value for money: price vs internet speed

A great way to judge a fibre broadband provider’s value for money is by comparing the internet speeds it offers with the monthly price it charges.

If you look at the ‘megabits’ of internet speed per £1 a provider charges each month, then you can see which providers have the fastest speeds for the cheapest price.

Our research found that some broadband providers with the best value for money were small full fibre providers, also known as ‘altnets’. They’re not as widely available as the most well-known providers, but they often offer impressive ultrafast speeds for surprisingly low monthly prices.

So, if you’d like to know what makes their deals so much better value, take a look at our value-for-money guide.

Which broadband provider has the best value for money?

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Which are the best fibre broadband providers in the UK?

Almost all internet providers in the UK offer fibre broadband, with no one option necessarily being the best. The best fibre broadband for you depends on what you need, whether it's a cheaper part-fibre deal or an ultrafast broadband connection.

Here are some broadband providers you can compare part-fibre and full fibre deals with today.

It's a good idea to learn about what each broadband provider can offer you, including how well they are regarded for different parts of a broadband service.

Some may have excellent customer service, but their speeds may be slower than you would like. Others may offer big TV bundles, but their prices might be a lot higher as a result. So, it's important to read provider reviews to make sure you choose one that offers more of what you need.

Uswitch broadband provider reviews

Read our expert reviews of all of the UK's biggest broadband providers.

Read our broadband reviews

You could also check out the 2024 Uswitch Telecoms Awards winners, where we’ve highlighted the broadband providers that have recently excelled in areas like customer service, value for money and reliability.

Virgin Media cable broadband

Virgin Media's cable broadband is slightly different from other fibre providers. While it also uses fibre-optic cables from its exchange to each local street cabinet, it then uses its own coaxial cables to finish the journey to your home.

This means Virgin Media can also deliver very fast broadband speeds ranging from 100Mbps to 1Gbps. Because it isn't part of the main Openreach network, Virgin has its own broadband infrastructure. This is why its Virgin Media coverage is slightly more limited, at around 56% of UK premises.

However, Virgin Media is available in more areas than full fibre, so if you're looking for ultrafast or gigabit speeds, it's worth checking to see if Virgin Media broadband deals are available in your area.

Altnets: small full fibre providers

Some broadband providers only supply full fibre connections, so their average speeds are much faster.

Most of these providers, also called altnets, are only available to a limited number of places in the UK for now.

But as altnets’ coverage continues to grow to more areas, they’re starting to present a great alternative to the more prominent companies. Especially when it comes to price and reliability.

Here’s what our Uswitch telecoms expert, Nick Baker, said about broadband altnet Hyperoptic’s service.

Our expert says

“If Hyperoptic is available in your home, it is absolutely a provider you should consider.

"Prices are both reasonable and fixed throughout your contract. And the reliability of its internet connection is some of the best you’ll find from a broadband provider.

"And, while the provider doesn’t offer much in terms of other services or bundled packages, the ultrafast speeds offered by its full fibre network allow for unlimited streaming on multiple devices at once."

Nick Baker, Senior Editor

Guide: Altnet broadband providers explained

How does fibre internet work?

Fibre broadband gains its speed advantage from the way it delivers data and the type of cable it uses to do so.

Standard copper broadband uses the same wires as your landline telephone, but fibre-optic broadband cables, which are made of plastic and glass, use pulsing beams of light to transmit data instead.

This lets it transmit a lot more data in any given period than copper cables can and unlike copper, fibre signals don't weaken over time, so the connection is more consistent.

This is what makes it much faster and more reliable than copper cables. The more data that can pass through at any given time, the ‘faster’ the connection. And the less prone it is to outages or slowdowns, the more consistent that connection is.

To learn more about how full fibre broadband works in particular, take a look at our detailed full fibre guide.

How to find the best fibre broadband deals

To find the best fibre broadband deal, you need to look for the best offer for you and your household. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to broadband because certain features and services would be more suited to you than others.

1. Decide what internet speed you need

The first thing to remember is which broadband speed is right for you. For example, the more people regularly use broadband in your household, the faster internet speed you will need.

Thankfully, even part-fibre deals can currently handle most households' internet usage. But if you need a fast internet speed for working from home or gaming, full fibre deals are becoming more available. Plus, even if you don't need full fibre speeds right now, it may soon be necessary to handle all of the devices in your home.

This all said, regardless of how much internet you use, you’ll have to account for everyone else’s usage, too. As a rough rule of thumb:

1-2 people per household: You could likely get away with a cheaper, slower fibre broadband speed below 35Mbps. But if you both often use the internet separately for bandwidth-hungry things like 4K streaming or gaming, you might have to look for something faster.
3-4 people: If your entire household only occasionally uses the internet, a speed of 35Mbps could be the most cost-effective option. But if you or your children are often watching Netflix or YouTube or playing online games, a speed of 50-100Mbps would be best.
5+ people: 50-100Mbps would be a safe bet if your household casually uses the internet, or you have children watching lots of videos. But if most people in the household use the internet a lot, such as high-quality TV streaming and working from home, a speed of 100Mbps or above would be ideal.

2. Consider TV and home phone bundles

Another thing to consider is whether you could benefit from a bundle deal that includes other services like pay-TV, a home phone or a mobile contract. The best fibre broadband deal for you could be one that brings multiple services into a single, cheaper monthly payment under the same provider.

Broadband and TV deals combine your broadband and TV service into the same contract. This is only possible with providers offering both services, such as Sky, BT, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and EE. But if you use both services regularly, you could save a significant amount each month and avoid paying extra for two separate bills.

Some providers also let you add a mobile phone contract to your broadband package, saving you money by combining both services into one package. Providers that have mobile phone networks, like Vodafone, BT and EE, will offer these bundles.

Broadband and TV deals

Take a look at the latest TV and broadband packages on Uswitch.

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3. Choose a monthly price you're comfortable with

The price of a broadband deal is often impacted by its speed, but it can also go up depending on how many other services they come with and which provider offers them.

Once you've decided what you want from a broadband package, you should have a rough price range. For example, a simple broadband-only deal of about 60Mbps can often range between £22-£30 per month.

Some providers may charge towards £30 based on their reputation and the quality of their service. Other providers, often smaller ones, will set a lower monthly fee of around £22 for a slightly simpler service. But both will still offer the same broadband speed.

Do I need fibre internet?

Standard broadband speeds should cover you if you're in a small household of one or two people and you only use the internet for small things like scrolling through social media, sending emails or watching the odd YouTube video.

However, in most cases, you can now get fibre broadband for the same price or cheaper than standard ADSL, so if that's the case, you should definitely go for a fibre connection. You may find the extra investment worth it for the extra reliability fibre provides.

And if you want to stream TV shows and movies regularly, play games online, download large files and programs, or if you live in a household with three or more internet users, the speed advantage offered by fibre broadband is invaluable.

Fibre broadband pros and cons

Nowadays, certain types of fibre broadband are so accessible that there aren’t really many downsides to it at all. But here are some things to consider about it, especially when it comes to full fibre broadband.

Much more consistent and reliable than copper - less prone to outages and slowdowns
Part-fibre is very widely available - over 97% of UK homes can access it
Lets multiple people stream, game and work from home at the same time

Part-fibre still relies on copper to get to your home - not as reliable as full fibre
Full fibre isn’t widely-available yet - only about half of UK homes can benefit from its speeds

Why can't I get fibre broadband deals?

About 3% of UK properties are unable to get any form of fibre broadband³. If you live in one of these properties, there are a few reasons why you might not be able to get a fibre connection:

1
You may live in a remote or hard-to-reach area, which is expensive for providers to install fibre cables
2
If you live in purpose-built flats, it can be difficult to install fibre cabling near to your flat block
3
You can get partial fibre, which is slower, but not full fibre

Not all hope is lost, though. Here are a couple of unlimited broadband alternatives to fibre that could provide similar broadband speeds:

Mobile broadband

If you have a mobile internet signal on your phone at home, you might be able to get 4G or 5G mobile broadband.

4G offers around 24Mbps - just under the slowest fibre connections. But 5G can provide up to 300Mbps speeds (so long as you live in an area that can access it).

What is 5G home broadband?

Satellite broadband

If mobile internet is also difficult to come by at your property, you might be able to get a faster connection with a satellite broadband service.

Traditionally, these connections have come with very slow internet speeds. But with the nationwide rollout of SpaceX’s Starlink connection, you may even be able to get ultrafast broadband speeds at your home.

Just be conscious that Starlink is currently very expensive since it’s such a new service.

Guide: All you need to know about satellite broadband

Fibre broadband FAQs

How affordable is fibre broadband?

Fibre broadband in the UK is surprisingly affordable nowadays, with the cheapest deals often about the same price as standard copper broadband - which is a lot slower and less reliable.

Can I get fibre without phone line rental?

If fibre-optic broadband is delivered to your home via copper cabling as part of an FTTC network, then you will still need a working phone line to deliver it.

However, if you have access to Virgin Media's cable broadband, full fibre, or suitable mobile broadband, you can get broadband without a landline.

See our guide on how you can get fibre broadband without a phone line.

Can I get fibre broadband-only deals?

It’s very easy to choose a fibre broadband-only deal, despite many part-fibre deals still requiring a phone line to get to your home.

Just make sure to select a deal that only mentions broadband, and you can skip past all of the add-on options that the provider will offer you when you’re signing up.

Or, you can compare broadband only deals only by visiting our page and clicking the 'fibre broadband' filter.

Do I need an engineer to install fibre?

If you already have fibre installed, you won't need an engineer to switch to a new fibre connection — unless you are upgrading to full fibre.

The same goes for if you're currently on a copper ADSL broadband connection. Most fibre deals use the same copper wires as your phone line, so you also don't need an engineer to switch to those.

But if you want full fibre, you'll need an engineer to install a fibre cable at your property.

Fibre studies & statistics methodology

¹ See the tables included in the Uswitch two-speed cities study

² See the ‘UK’s ten closest broadband divides’ table in the Uswitch two-speed cities study

³ Ofcom Connected Nations report, December 2023

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Fibre broadband deals

About these results

How our site works

Our featured fibre broadband deal

Fibre broadband explained

What is fibre broadband?

Can I get fibre broadband in my area?

Part-fibre broadband

Full fibre broadband

Broadband postcode checker

What’s the difference between superfast, ultrafast and gigabit speeds?

Superfast broadband

Ultrafast broadband

Gigabit broadband

How much does fibre broadband cost?

Value for money: price vs internet speed

Compare 12 month broadband deals

Compare more broadband deals on Uswitch

Which are the best fibre broadband providers in the UK?

Uswitch broadband provider reviews

Virgin Media cable broadband

Altnets: small full fibre providers

How does fibre internet work?

How to find the best fibre broadband deals

1. Decide what internet speed you need

2. Consider TV and home phone bundles

Broadband and TV deals

3. Choose a monthly price you're comfortable with

Do I need fibre internet?

Fibre broadband pros and cons

Why can't I get fibre broadband deals?

Mobile broadband

Satellite broadband

Fibre broadband FAQs

How affordable is fibre broadband?

Can I get fibre without phone line rental?

Can I get fibre broadband-only deals?

Do I need an engineer to install fibre?

Fibre studies & statistics methodology

Read more broadband guides