If you’re looking for independent BT Full Fibre Reviews on Google and struggling to find them, you’re not alone. Surprisingly they are few and far between and often buried in forums and community threads and social media.
This article takes the hard work out of it by providing summaries of reviews and links to sources like Trust Pilot, Ofcom research, and BT’s own channels – Facebook, Twitter and BT Community and various independent reports and reviews. In particular, it tries to balance the reviews with hard statistics that help see BT full reviews and BT full fibre reviews in perspective. So let’s get started.
Marketshare is important because it helps understand website reviews as a proportion of the wider broadband market. As of May 2023, the UK has around 28 million fixed-line broadband connections, with the lion’s share of this market being dominated by four key players: BT Group, Sky, Virgin Media, and TalkTalk. Collectively, these providers cater to around 85% of the UK’s broadband consumers. However, this dominance has begun to be challenged with the entry of independent full fibre networks and the growth of smaller resellers such as Vodafone, Shell Energy Broadband, and NOW (formerly known as Now TV is a subscription over-the-top internet television service that the Sky Group actually operates).
Let’s take a more detailed look at the market shares:
| Provider | Subscriber numbers (Est. 2023) | Market Share (Est. 2023) |
|---|---|---|
| BT (inc. PlusNet, EE) | 9,000,000 | 32.14% |
| Sky Broadband UK | 5,700,000 | 20.36% |
| Virgin Media (inc. O2) | 5,682,600 | 20.29% |
| TalkTalk | 4,200,000 | 15.00% |
| Vodafone UK | 1,223,000 | 4.37% |
| Shell Energy | 595,000 | 2.12% |
| Glide | 400,000 | 1.43% |
| Hyperoptic | 275,000 | 0.98% |
| Zen Internet | 175,000 | 0.63% |
| KCOM | 135,900 | 0.49% |
Source: ISP Review
The UK broadband market continues to be largely controlled by key players, yet a closer look at recent figures reveals interesting dynamics.
Topping the chart, the BT Group – which incorporates BT, PlusNet, and EE – boasts an estimated 9 million customers, holding a significant market share of 32.14%. This dominance notwithstanding, the company has been the subject of substantial criticism over its “Full Fibre” product, underscoring the importance of customer satisfaction in maintaining this lead.
Sky Broadband UK has carved out its niche as the second largest broadband provider, serving about 5.7 million customers and holding 20.36% of the market. Virgin Media, now part of VMO2, is not far behind with approximately 5.68 million customers and a 20.29% market share.
The last big player is TalkTalk, which operates on-net and reaches around 4.2 million customers, equating to a 15% market share. Despite their significant shares, these leading providers have faced market contraction over the past years, indicating possible shifts in customer preference or competitive landscape.
Emerging from the crowd of smaller providers, Vodafone UK has made a notable impact with its 1.22 million customer base, capturing 4.37% of the market. Other providers, including Shell Energy, Glide, Hyperoptic, Zen Internet, and KCOM, although managing smaller subscriber bases, have nonetheless carved out respective niches, holding market shares ranging from 2.12% to 0.49%.
While BT’s market leadership is unquestionable, the criticism surrounding its “Full Fibre” offering highlights a critical challenge for the company. Despite this, a considerable number of customers remain with BT, suggesting that the product’s issues do not outweigh the benefits, or that compelling alternatives are lacking.
Researching customer reviews is an effective way to gauge the quality of a service. For prospective BT customers, or existing customers looking to upgrade their service, there are several resources available to find reviews and experiences of BT’s Full Fibre broadband. Here are some of the most useful platforms:
Trustpilot always need to be looked at in context. They should be taken as genuine reviews and Trust Pilot does a lot of work in the background to ensure that they are. But even so, Trust Pilots’ own research in why people write reviews shows that:
“consumers are more inclined to write reviews when the experience they’ve had strikes an emotional chord, whether positive or negative. If a consumer has had a very poor experience, they’ll write a review in order to vent frustration and anger, especially if they feel personally mistreated or wronged.”
Keeping that in mind, at the time of writing, there were 14,288 Trust Pilot Reviews on BT. That’s roughly 0.2% of all UK BT broadband customers (14,288 is approx. 0.159% of 9 million). But that figure is all BT customers, and not broadband specifically. The only way to distinguish those reviews is to filter them – and you can do this using Trust Pilot’s handy keyword filter feature which is well worth trying yourself. If you do you’ll notice a much smaller figure – searching for “fibre” (1107 reviews in our research), and for “full fibre” (177 reviews). Narrow it down further and there are just a handful of reviews about specific packages Full Fibre 100 (0.13%), Full Fibre 500 (0.08%), and Full Fibre 900 (0.11%). Note, you’ll need to you boolean quotation marks if you use more than one word in the Trust Pilot search filter.
| Filtering Trustpilot Reviews | Total | Percentage of All Reviews (%) |
| All Reviews | 14,288 | 100.00% |
| Broadband | 4,823 | 33.75% |
| Fibre | 1,107 | 7.75% |
| “Full Fibre” | 177 | 1.24% |
| “Full Fibre 100” | 19 | 0.13% |
| “Full Fibre 500” | 12 | 0.08% |
| “Full Fibre 900” | 16 | 0.11% |
Not too surprisingly, the Trustpilot reviews are overwhelmingly negative. You’ll note that 87% of all BT reviews are negative. The same pattern follows for Broadband, Fibre, Full Fibre and individual fibre packages.
Here’s a summary of the of those reviews with key points about how customers felt:
While there were some positive experiences. Some customers seem to praise BT’s customer service for going above and beyond to help them out.
BT’s responses overall seem to demonstrate an effort to acknowledge and resolve customers’ complaints. Of the 1107 fibre mentions, there are 506 responses (46%) by BT showing a good level of feedback. However, their general approach involved directing customers to other platforms for further assistance.
Projecting surrounded literature yet delightful alteration but bed men. Open are from long why cold. If must snug by upon sang loud left.
It’s important to note that these points are specific to the Full Fibre 100 service and not general comments about BT as a company or about other services they provide. Also, these are personal accounts and cannot be taken to be representative of all users. What they should do though is serve as Q&A if you’re looking to start a BT full fibre broadband contract. When you speak to customer representatives at BT ensure the same things do happen and that there is an assurance or guarantee that they do not happen to you over the course of your contract. Here’s a link to the individual accounts and an interpretive summary of those views below:
The BT Community Forum is an online platform provided by BT where prospective, new and existing customers can interact with each other, share experiences, ask questions, and provide solutions related to BT’s services. This can include a wide range of topics, such as broadband connectivity, mobile services, BT Sport, email, and more. Here’s a flavour of the discussions on two threads:
For the Full Fibre 500 package reviews for BT on Trustpilot they reveal a range of issues from customers regarding their experiences with the company’s broadband services. There are common themes across these reviews, which can be summarised as follows:
© 2024 Deals on Broadband
