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A recent study from New Street Research has predicted that the UK will lose around 250,000 subscribers to fixed broadband services this year, which would mark “the first time there has ever been a decline” in the market. Competition from Starlink (satellite), fixed wireless and mobile broadband rivals are said to be the main cause.
The study indicates that one of the key changes taking place reflects the growth in mobile-only households, where factors like the cost-of-living crisis and improvements in the performance of 4G/5G mobile networks are causing more people to save money by sharing their Smartphone’s mobile broadband (Tethering / WiFi Hotspot etc.) connection instead of taking a fixed line.
The issue is one that Openreach’s (BT) Deputy CEO, Katie Milligan, similarly touched on earlier in the week when discussing the operator’s own ongoing decline in broadband lines (here). As a related report on Fierce Network also points out, data from Point Topic shows fixed operators shedding a net 14,000 broadband subscribers in Q2 2025, which was actually an improvement on the 88,000 net losses in Q1.
However, we should point out that Ofcom’s most recent Telecoms Data Tables update shows that there were 29.2 million fixed broadband lines at the end of Q1 2025 (here), which is an increase of 756,000 (2.7%) year-on-year. Some 22.3m of that total were via fibre-based FTTx broadband connections (FTTC, FTTP, FTTB etc.), with the rest coming from cable (hybrid fibre coax / Virgin Media) and slow copper ADSL lines.
The number of ADSL lines decreased by 147,000 (8.0%) during the quarter and now total under 1.8m (most of these go to FTTx). But accurately tracking exactly what type of broadband connectivity everybody has at home is difficult, particularly when they switch to a mobile-only or satellite-only approach. Most people still view mobile and satellite as complementary solutions, rather than replacements, but clearly some households may be opting for a more complete switch.
The market has arguably been plateauing like this, at a high point of general saturation, for several years. But it will be interesting to see whether mobile broadband finally starts to become a bigger threat, rather than just a complement, to full fibre (FTTP) over the next few years. Some mobile operators, such as Three UK, have long championed it for fixed wireless broadband delivery, although variable performance and other connection caveats have tended to hold it back. Such issues may become less and less of a barrier as 5GSA (5G+) expands, IPv6 is deployed more widely and 6G comes on-tap.