13.9 million UK premises can get full fibre but have not switched

A new free tracker from BroadbandSwitch.uk says 13.9 million UK homes and businesses could order full fibre broadband today but have not yet done so. The release also highlights wide local take-up gaps, falling complaint rates and a growing mismatch between official broadband price measures.

Why it matters: - Millions of UK premises have access to full fibre, but many have not converted that access into an active service. - The gap matters because take-up differs sharply by council area, showing that rollout alone is not driving adoption. - BroadbandSwitch.uk says the tracker is free to use and cite, with downloads and a regional explorer designed to make the data easier to compare.

What happened: - BroadbandSwitch.uk Data Lab launched UK Broadband in Numbers, a new free monthly tracker covering UK broadband coverage, take-up, speeds, prices and service. - The tracker says 13.9 million UK homes and businesses can order full fibre today but have not yet done so. - Ofcom data show full fibre reaches 26.3 million premises, with 12.4 million live connections and a 47% take-up rate in January 2026. - The tracker uses figures from Ofcom, the Office for National Statistics, Building Digital UK, Openreach and other named sources. - The data set covers all 361 council areas and updates on the first working day of every month.

The details: - Take-up ranges from 78% in Hull to 19% in Kensington and Chelsea. - Five of the 10 council areas with the highest take-up are in Northern Ireland. - Leeds has 50% take-up, Glasgow 43% and Birmingham 37%. - The tracker says 82% of UK homes can order full fibre and 89% can get gigabit-capable broadband, using Ofcom January 2026 data. - Broadband complaints to Ofcom held at 6 per 100,000 customers in April to June 2026, matching the record low from the first quarter of the year. - Virgin Media had the fewest complaints at 4 per 100,000 customers, while BT, EE, TalkTalk and Vodafone each had 7. - 28% of fixed broadband customers were out of contract on at least one service at the end of June 2025. - Premises unable to get a decent broadband connection of 10 Mbps fell from 1.1 million in 2017 to 39,000. - More than 3.4 million people had started a switch through One Touch Switch by 3 September 2026, two years after launch. - The average home used 583 GB of data a month in July 2025, up from 531 GB a year earlier. - The tracker includes a PDF edition, spreadsheet, JSON and plain-text downloads, plus a copy-ready citation on every figure and a public corrections log. - Households can check whether full fibre has reached their street through the site’s full fibre availability checker. - UK Broadband in Numbers is in beta until 1 January 2027, and the next update is due on Tuesday 1 December 2026.

Between the lines: - The data suggest the UK broadband debate has shifted from buildout to adoption. - Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith, founder of BroadbandSwitch.uk, said the industry has built full fibre quickly, but the next task is helping people use it. - Martin-Smith also said the take-up gap between Hull and Kensington and Chelsea shows that getting fibre into the street is only half the story. - The tracker puts two different price measures side by side because they point in different directions. - Ofcom’s inflation-adjusted measure shows the average price of a 300 to 999 Mbps connection fell from £68 to £37 a month between 2020 and 2025, at July 2025 prices. - The ONS internet access price index, which is not inflation-adjusted, has risen 54% since January 2020, compared with 33% for all consumer prices. - Martin-Smith said more than one in four broadband customers is out of contract, and Ofcom finds people on a current deal pay £7 to £9 a month less on average than those who are not. - Under One Touch Switch, the new provider arranges the move.

What's next: - BroadbandSwitch.uk says the tracker will continue updating monthly. - The beta period runs through 1 January 2027. - Readers can send feedback through the form on the tracker page. - The company also says interviews with Dr Alex J. Martin-Smith are available on request.

The bottom line: - Full fibre access is now widespread in the UK, but the bigger challenge is turning that coverage into active connections, especially in lower-adoption areas.