Copper broadband collapsing in the UK ahead of landline switch-off
Copper broadband connections in the UK have fallen by more than 727,000 connections over the last month ahead of the planned January switch-off.
Data from analytics firm Point Topic shows that UK fixed broadband market held flat in Q3 2026 at 29.35 million connections, but its structure has changed sharply. Full fibre added 758,550 lines, while FTTC/FTTx fell 657,000 and DSL 70,600.
TalkTalk’s break-up ahead of BT’s acquisition moved around 140,000 customers to Rise Fibre, 13,500 to Fleur Telecom and an estimated 29,000 to Utility Warehouse, and Onestream entered our data at 121,000 after taking over Cuckoo’s customers.
This means that full fibre is now the majority access technology, with 14.74 million lines against 8.02 million FTTC/FTTx lines. VMO2’s DOCSIS base fell to 4.94 million and DSL to 0.96 million, while FWA reached 529,100 connections, including 42,000 on VodafoneThree’s 5G Broadband product.
BT the major player
BT Group’s consumer base across BT, EE and Plusnet was 8.21 million at the end of September, down 8,000 in the quarter, which BT attributes to a new activation fee.
Consumer FTTP grew 242,000 to 4.74 million, now 58% of the base, with EE again taking the largest share of fibre growth.
Notably, BT acquired TalkTalk Telecommunications and PXC out of administration on 5 October, protecting around 2.5 million customers: 1.5 million retail, 1 million wholesale and 75,000 Ethernet.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed a pre-emptive action order, so TalkTalk is run separately from BT while the review continues.
VMO2 lost 22,100 consumer broadband customers in Q3, leaving 5.40 million, and consumer fixed average revenue per user (ARPU) fell 5% to £45.83.
The group announced that will halt its fibre upgrade programme beyond existing commitments and bring 2Gbps speeds to most of its cable network in 2027. With its combined full fibre footprint (including nexfibre) at 9.4 million premises and 695,000 FTTP lines, take-up stands at just 7.4%.
