If you are currently enjoying a competitive broadband deal with one of the UK's smaller full fibre providers, it may be worth making the most of it. Analysts and industry researchers are increasingly warning that the era of rock-bottom altnet pricing could be approaching its natural limits — and that prices across the sector are likely to rise as the financial reality of building and maintaining full fibre networks catches up with growth-first business models.
The UK's alternative network providers — commonly known as altnets — have spent the last several years building full fibre infrastructure in areas served by Openreach and Virgin Media, competing aggressively on price to win customers. The strategy has worked, up to a point. Between 2024 and 2025, Openreach lost around 860,000 net lines, with altnets picking up roughly 850,000 in the same period. Collectively, altnets have now passed nearly 20 million UK premises with full fibre infrastructure and have accumulated over 3.5 million live customer connections.
But the pricing underpinning that growth contains a structural problem. Veronica Speiser, Senior UK Plus Analyst at industry research firm Point Topic, has flagged that most altnets currently generate somewhere between £25 and £35 per customer per month. Breaking even on a full fibre network, according to the same analysis, likely requires closer to £45 per month. That gap — of £10 to £20 per customer every month — is not sustainable indefinitely, particularly as debt financing costs remain elevated and build costs have increased since the rollout programmes were originally costed.
The logic behind aggressive altnet pricing was straightforward when these networks were getting started. Build a new full fibre network, undercut the established players on price, acquire customers quickly, and scale to the point where unit economics become viable. Many altnets also made a point of pledging no mid-contract price rises — a deliberate contrast with BT, Sky, and other major providers who have become known for applying annual increases regardless of what customers originally agreed to pay.
That positioning resonated with consumers. The problem is that average take-up across altnet networks currently sits at just 18% of the premises they pass. That means a significant amount of expensive infrastructure is being built, financed, and maintained with relatively few paying customers actually using it. The economics of running a broadband network improve substantially as take-up increases — but reaching the densities needed to cover costs takes time, and the interest clock on build debt does not wait.
The numbers behind the altnet sector make for uncomfortable reading. Analyst firm Enders Analysis calculated that the UK's largest altnet providers collectively recorded losses of £1.5 billion in 2024 — up from £1.3 billion in 2023 and £755 million in 2022. Each year the losses have grown, driven by rising build costs, higher interest rates on the debt used to finance network construction, and the ongoing gap between revenue per customer and the cost of serving them.
Some networks have not been able to absorb the pressure. Gigaclear — a rural-focused full fibre provider — recently had lenders take control of the business. London provider G.Network went through administration before emerging restructured and free of its debt burden. These situations have been framed as recoveries, and in some respects they are — but the process has left unpaid suppliers and investors absorbing real losses, and it illustrates how thin the margins are across parts of the sector.
It would be wrong to paint the entire altnet sector with the same brush. Different providers are in meaningfully different financial positions depending on their build costs, geographic focus, and take-up rates.
Netomnia, for example, has managed to keep build costs low enough to remain competitive on pricing without the same degree of financial strain seen at some larger rollout programmes. Rural specialist Wessex Internet has always priced at a premium that reflects the genuine cost of connecting harder-to-reach locations — a transparent approach that has served it better than providers who priced rurally as if they were operating in a dense urban area.
CityFibre presents a different model again. As a wholesale-only network — selling infrastructure to retail providers like Vodafone and Zen Internet rather than directly to consumers — its products are reportedly priced at up to 40% below comparable Openreach wholesale rates on some speed tiers. That wholesale cost advantage flows through to the retail providers on its network and gives them more room to price competitively while maintaining healthier margins than pure retail altnets.
For households currently on an altnet contract, the near-term picture is relatively stable. Existing contracts — particularly those with fixed pricing pledges — should be honoured. The pressure on pricing is more relevant to new customers signing up over the next 12 to 24 months, and to anyone currently on a rolling monthly arrangement where rates can be adjusted with notice.
Over the medium term, the direction of travel is likely upward. The altnet pricing model — undercut to grow, then rationalise — is not unique to broadband. It has played out in ride-sharing, food delivery, streaming, and dozens of other sectors where venture-backed or debt-financed operators buy market share before moving pricing toward sustainability. The timetable varies, but the direction rarely does.
The more meaningful question for consumers is not whether altnet prices will rise, but whether they will rise faster than Openreach and Virgin Media prices fall in response to competitive pressure. Real competition in the UK broadband market is a genuine development of the last few years — and that competition has already driven pricing improvements across the board. Even if altnet prices increase, the presence of multiple providers competing for customers in the same postcodes gives households more leverage than they have had in a long time.
If you are approaching the end of a contract with any broadband provider — altnet or otherwise — this is a good moment to compare what is available at your address rather than simply renewing. Pricing across the market continues to shift, and the deal that looked like the obvious choice 18 months ago may have been superseded by newer offers from providers that have since extended their coverage to your postcode.
The best broadband deal is always the one available at your specific address, at the moment you are looking. A postcode check takes minutes and could reveal options your current provider never told you about.
Sources: ISPreview UK, Point Topic, Enders Analysis (April 2026). Data cited reflects analyst estimates and industry reporting current at time of publication.
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