UK Broadband Providers: Which Wholesale Network Is Behind Each Brand

There are no prices on this page. Live pricing is the one thing a static page cannot keep honest, and there are half a dozen comparison engines that do it properly. What none of them do is tell you which network is actually behind the brand you are about to buy, which brands no longer exist, and which contract clause will cost you the most. That is what this is for.

The network decides what you can get. The brand decides what you pay.

Almost every UK broadband brand rents its connection from a wholesale network operator. Openreach is the incumbent, separated from BT Group precisely so that BT's retail arm cannot get a better product than its competitors. CityFibre is the largest alternative full-fibre builder, concentrated in mid-sized towns and cities. Virgin Media runs its own cable network. Three delivers over its mobile network and is not a fixed line at all.

The consequence is worth stating flatly: two brands in the same column of the map below are selling you the same connection. Not a similar one, the same wholesale product, provisioned the same way, fixed by the same engineers. Any difference in speed at your address is a difference in what the network has built there, not in who bills you.

That is also why brand comparisons are close to useless without an address check. Any of these providers will sell you an excellent connection where full fibre has been built and a copper-limited one where it has not, and the tier name does not distinguish the two.

Four of these brands no longer exist

This is the part that comparison sites handle badly, because a comparison engine needs something to compare and a dead brand offers nothing. But the searches do not stop when the brand does. They change from shopping to troubleshooting. People typing these names are trying to find out who is billing them, where a refund went, or why a number port has stalled.

• Left the market

• Shell Energy broadband

  Migrated to TalkTalk, which had been supplying the line all along.

  Closed

• Post Office broadband

  Sold its 465,000-customer base in 2021. Those lines are now TalkTalk.

  Closed

• John Lewis broadband

  A Plusnet white label. Closed on 28 May 2024.

  Closed

• Origin broadband

  Acquired by TalkTalk Group in 2021; its own domain no longer resolves.

  Gone

There is a pattern in all four. Every one was a retail brand reselling somebody else's copper product: a supermarket-style consumer name on a wholesale line, competing on trust and price with no control over the network. That model worked while broadband was copper and acquisition was cheap. It stopped working when the market moved to full fibre, because a reseller cannot follow its customers onto a network it has no relationship to sell.

The useful lesson is a question to ask before signing anything: who operates the network, and is the company billing me the same company that operates it? A wholesale arrangement is not disqualifying, most of the market works that way, but it tells you where the brand sits in the chain, and therefore how much it can actually do about anything you later complain about.

The providers still selling

• Currently trading

• EE broadband

  BT Group brand on Openreach. Same line and engineers as BT; the mobile bundling is where the sums differ.

• BT broadband

  The incumbent, on the network its own group owns but must offer to rivals on equal terms.

• Plusnet

  BT Group value brand. Still sells residential; business broadband closed in June 2024.

• Sky broadband

  Openreach for most households, CityFibre where built. The television is the real product.

• NOW broadband

  Sky's value brand on Openreach, with the TV unbundled into monthly passes.

• TalkTalk

  Openreach and CityFibre, and the wholesaler that absorbed two other brands’ customers.

• Vodafone broadband

  Openreach and CityFibre, with a mobile business to bundle against.

• Virgin Media

  Its own cable network. Large download, much smaller upload, and a harder switch out.

• Three broadband

  Not a fixed line: a hub with a SIM on the mobile network, in selected postcodes.

• Onestream

  Competitively priced reseller. Read the add-ons at the confirmation screen before ordering.

The three contract terms that cost real money

First, the step at the end of the term. Every UK provider sells an introductory rate for the minimum term and then moves the account to the standard rate automatically. The step is substantial, it needs no notice beyond the original contract, and it is the largest avoidable cost in broadband. Diarise the end date the day you sign.

Second, the in-term increase. Where a contract permits an annual rise, it applies inside the period you committed to. Read what it is linked to and whether triggering it gives you a right to leave. A fixed-price contract that genuinely holds the figure for its full term is worth paying a little more for, and at least one provider now competes on exactly that.

Third, whatever is added at the confirmation screen. Opt-out add-ons — technical support cover, insurance products, are charged unless declined, and they are the subject of both regulatory action and a consistent complaint pattern in the cheaper end of the market. Read every line of the final total before confirming, and screenshot it.

Full fibre is the only upgrade that changes the experience

Moving from a copper-based tier to full fibre lifts the upload as well as the download, and upload is what modern households actually run short of. Video calls, cloud backup, sending large files and any camera streaming offsite all consume it, which is why a connection can pass a speed test and still stutter on a call.

Moving up within full fibre generally changes nothing you notice. The constraint at that point is the Wi-Fi, the device or the far end of the connection, none of which a faster line addresses.

Check availability by address rather than postcode, check each network separately, and re-check if it has been six months, builds are ongoing and last year's answer is not this year's. See what full fibre actually means and how switching works now.

What to do in the order that works

Check the address across every network. Establish whether the product you are offered is fibre to the premises or fibre to a cabinet with copper for the last stretch. Find out whether you are in or out of contract with your current provider, and if in, what the exit charge would be, both are figures they must give you.

Then price the whole term rather than the monthly figure, including any separate line rental, and compare against the cheapest brand selling the identical product at that address. If you would rather stay put, ring and ask for a retention price, and quote the same group's own cheaper brand at it, BT against Plusnet, Sky against NOW. It is the same company pricing the same line, which is harder to dismiss than a rival's offer.

Out of contract, with no exit fee and sitting on the standard rate, is the strongest position a broadband customer ever holds. Most people occupy it for years without using it.

Frequently asked questions