Broadband reviews: the full index of UK provider pages

Every provider page, including the four brands that have left the market. Each one leads with which wholesale network is behind it.

Twenty-one pages sit in this section, and they are all written from the same starting point: the retailer whose name is on the bill is usually not the company that owns the line. Establish the wholesale network first and most of the rest of a broadband comparison falls into place, including why two providers quoting the same speed can behave differently on the same street.

Who actually owns the line

Four answers cover the whole UK market. Openreach carries the great majority of retailers, BT and its own brands among them. CityFibre has built its own full-fibre network in more than a hundred towns and cities, and TalkTalk, Vodafone and Sky all sell over it where it has been built. Virgin Media runs its own cable network, which is why its availability follows the historic cable footprint rather than a retailer's coverage map. And Three is not a fixed line at all: a hub with a SIM in it, sold by postcode over the mobile network.

Each provider page in this section leads with that fact rather than with a verdict, because it is the one piece of information that stays true between promotions.

The four brands that have left the market

A good part of the UK's mid-market broadband brands have been sold or closed since 2021, and pages elsewhere still list their packages. John Lewis Broadband closed on 28 May 2024, having stopped taking new customers in early 2022. Post Office Broadband, around 465,000 customers, was sold to Shell Energy in 2021. Shell Energy Broadband then went to TalkTalk in 2024, so a line that started as a Post Office one is now a TalkTalk one two owners on. Origin Broadband was acquired by TalkTalk Group in 2021 and its domain no longer resolves.

Those four keep their pages instead of being deleted, because the searches still run and "where did my account go" is a question the closure notices answered badly.

What these pages do not publish

No prices, no speeds and no star ratings appear anywhere in this section. All three vary by postcode and by promotion, a static page cannot keep them honest, and a number that is wrong is worse than no number. What is written down instead is the part that holds: which network is behind the brand, what the contract does at the end of its term, who owns whom, and what to check before signing.

For the current state of the market as a whole, the provider index is the entry point; switching covers the exit side.

Every page in this section

Narrower collections, one per subject, are listed under subjects. The guides index covers everything in one place.