What is the fastest broadband in my area?

Gigabit broadband is now available to over 84% of the UK, and there are areas that can get even faster download speeds, with 1.6Gbps and 2Gbps plans starting to roll out.

Despite this, there are also some areas left underserved by the full fibre rollout including more rural parts of the country, where residents may be limited to superfast speeds.

The best way to find out the speed of broadband in your area is using our free broadband postcode tool that will return all of the available deals in your area.

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Broadband availability checker by area

Our broadband postcode tool can check the availability of the fastest broadband deals in your area, and offers the latest pricing and special offer promotions.

To find out what is the fastest broadband in your area, enter your postcode below:

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Fastest broadband by area

As multiple providers are rolling out gigabit-capable and full fibre broadband across the UK, availability for the fastest packages is continually changing.

Openreach, owned by BT Group, who have plans to provide gigabit broadband to 25 million premises across the UK in the next few years, arguably operate the biggest network. As of mid 2024, they've passed 15 million premises with full fibre broadband, and now offer a 1.6Gbps plan through retailers including Vodafone.

Virgin Media have the current widest availability of fast broadband with their Gig1 plan now available across their entire network of 16 million premises. Yet, more newly connected areas can now access 2Gbps speeds on their Gig2 plan, which is so far available to over 1 million homes.

Virgin Media are also rapidly expanding their network, with targets to increase coverage to a further 7 million premises by the end of 2026.

There are also a wide range of smaller independent networks cropping up all over the UK in both urban and rural areas. CityFibre, for example, have now passed over 3.8 million premises and plan to eventually reach 8 million.

However, right now, this also means there are wide variations in the speed of broadband available in different parts of the country, and even between nearby towns.

While gigabit broadband is now available to over 84% of the UK, the Government plans to reach nationwide coverage by 2030, and so there are still many areas yet to be reached.

Carrying out frequent broadband postcode checks can let you know if any providers have reached your area as this is likely to constantly change over the next several years.

You can also read more about the fastest broadband in the UK overall.

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Broadband connection types

The fastest broadband in a particular area will be entirely dependent on the networks and connection types available there.

Superfast broadband

Superfast broadband, that's broadband with a download speed of at least 30Mb, is available to over 98% of the UK.

Predominantly, superfast broadband is delivered on the Openreach network, using fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) connections. These utilise the existing copper telephone network, and have fibre optic cables laid to the nearest street cabinet, and then the copper phone line wires take the signal the rest of the way to a customer's home.

FTTC is affected by distance as the signal attenuates (weakens) over longer distances. As a result, the fastest speed of these connections is around 60 to 70Mb, with some customers only able to access the 35Mb plans due to the distance they live from the exchange.

Across the UK, availability of superfast broadband is currently:

Source: ThinkBroadband

As you can see, while superfast broadband is nearly universally available, more rural areas, such as in Scotland and Wales, have slower broadband speeds likely due to distances of properties from the nearest telecoms' infrastructure.

Ultrafast broadband

Faster, ultrafast, broadband speeds are available in areas of the country where either Virgin Media operates their network, or Openreach has upgraded areas to G.Fast or full fibre.

G.Fast is a technology which can boost download speeds of fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) connections, yet it's only available to a few areas in the UK, with just 2.8 million premises able to access it.

Some of the towns around the UK that have seen G.Fast upgrades include Bargoed in Cardiff, Worthing, Greenwich, Northampton, Wembley, Lincoln, Barnsley, and Eastbourne, among others.

FTTC can be boosted from a top speed of 80Mb to as fast as 350Mb using G.Fast. However, with the advent of full fibre it's no longer being rolled out, and cabinets without active customers are being downgraded.

Gigafast broadband

Gigafast, or gigabit, broadband, that is broadband delivering download speeds of 1,000Mb or 1Gb, is now available to over 84% of the UK.

So far, the biggest impact to gigabit availability has been made by Virgin Media when they completed an upgrade in 2021 of their network to 1Gb broadband speeds for all 16 million premises covered.

New Virgin Media connections being rolled out on the Nexfibre network are now full fibre to the home and offer speeds up to 2Gbps to around 1 million premises so far. Virgin Media is also planning to upgrade their existing coaxial cable network to full fibre by the end of 2028.

For now, Virgin Media availability across the UK looks like this:

As we've seen above for superfast broadband availability, Virgin Media has focused more on urban and suburban areas, with a greater presence in England towns and cities, and less availability in rural areas such as Wales.

However, that doesn't tell the entire story because there are many independent full fibre providers connecting areas to gigabit broadband, and often these smaller companies focus more on rural and underserved areas.

As such, gigabit broadband availability actually looks more promising, especially in Northern Ireland:

Northern Ireland has received a boost in coverage largely due to Openreach's rollout of full fibre in the country, as well as active alt-nets like Fibrus. While England has more independent full fibre networks operating than in the rest of the UK.

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Fastest broadband networks in the UK

While the majority of broadband providers are topping out at 1Gbps on their fastest full fibre connections, there are a handful of providers breaking this limit and now offering multi-gigabit broadband speeds.

Where these faster providers are available, customers have access to multi-gigabit broadband speeds, from 1.6Gbps to 2.2Gbps, and even 3Gbps in parts of London.

Here are the fastest broadband networks to look out for in the UK right now.

CityFibre - 2.2Gbps

Coverage in urban towns in England and Scotland

With average download speeds up to 2.2Gbps available through Vodafone, CityFibre is one of the fastest networks in the UK today.

CityFibre have so far passed over 3.8 million premises, with availability focused in urban areas of England and Scotland, although major cities, including London and Manchester, are excluded.

Areas with CityFibre coverage are typically urban towns, including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Inverness, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Doncaster, Sheffield, Newcastle, Leicester, Peterborough, Milton Keyes, Southend-on-Sea, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Chichester, Worthing, Brighton, and Eastbourne.

The fastest CityFibre broadband plan is sold by Vodafone, and offers either 1.8Gbps or 2.2Gbps symmetrical download and upload speeds:

TalkTalk also resell CityFibre, but their fastest plan is only 944Mbps at the moment.

Read more about Vodafone broadband or TalkTalk broadband.

Virgin Media - up to 2Gbps

Nationwide - across the UK

Virgin Media have wide availability, covering over 16 million premises across the UK, with a particular focus on urban and suburban areas.

Their main network offers broadband speeds up to 1.13Gbps, while their new partnership with Nexfibre means over 1 million additional homes can now access even faster 2Gbps symmetrical speeds:

Nexfibre is rolling out across the UK, with active builds in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Areas are fairly evenly spread and always avoid overbuild with Virgin Media's existing network, which focuses principally in and around London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Nexfibre also has targets to reach a total of 5 million new premises by 2026, while Virgin Media is upgrading their existing network to full fibre by 2028.

Find out more in our review of Virgin Media broadband.

Openreach - up to 1.6Gbps

Nationwide - across the UK

While the fastest networks tend to be smaller independent outfits, Openreach who now pass over 15 million premises with full fibre broadband are now offering up to 1.6Gbps download speeds through Vodafone and other resellers:

The new 1.6Gbps plan is available nationwide, and Openreach is rolling out full fibre in all parts of the UK, including many harder-to-reach rural areas through Government funding.

Most retailers of Openreach broadband have top speeds of 900Mbps, including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet, and NOW Broadband. Yet, Vodafone and EE both sell plans up to 1.6Gbps with average upload speeds of 105Mbps.

Openreach plan to reach 25 million premises with full fibre broadband by 2026, and also plan to launch a symmetrical 1Gbps service in April 2025 in select areas.

Read more about Vodafone broadband.

Community Fibre - up to 3Gbps

London and the South East

Community Fibre is a dedicated London provider and their network is capable of delivering broadband speeds as fast as 3Gbps.

While it's not available to all homes on Community Fibre's network, it is priced well at £50 per month on a 24-month contract, and it can support a large number of users and devices all connecting at the same time.

For anyone who doesn't want to spend that much, Community Fibre's 1Gb deal is also still one of the UK's fastest broadband packages due to the technology they use to connect homes to their network.

By installing full fibre cables all the way into a customer's home, Community Fibre offer symmetrical upload speeds, so uploading is just as quick as downloading.

Here are their latest prices:

Community Fibre is so far available to over 1.3 million homes across 32 London boroughs, as well as select areas in Surrey and Sussex on the old Box network.

Read more in our Community Fibre review.

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Summary: use the broadband area checker tool

For anyone wanting to find out which is the fastest broadband available in their area they should use our free broadband postcode tool.

This tool will return all the available providers for a given postcode area, and the results can be sorted by broadband speed to see the fastest connections available.

Over the next several years we will be seeing more providers expanding their networks and coverage across the UK in a bid to reach the Government's target of national gigabit coverage by 2030. This is likely going to result in an eventual increase in the number of full fibre providers any one home can choose to sign up with.

So, while the speed of broadband in your area may currently be limited to just one or two fast broadband providers, keep an eye on the checker tool to see how that changes over the next few years.

Read more about the fastest broadband in the UK overall, as well as the latest gigabit broadband plans.