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- Family filters are highly rated by customers
- It’s been around since the dawn of broadband
- Doesn’t offer the fastest headline speeds
- Supplied router is generations old
BT Broadband is sandwiched awkwardly in the middle of its two BT-owned stablemates, Plusnet and EE. Plusnet is cheaper and more highly rated by customers; EE has faster speeds, better bundle deals and up-to-date router equipment. BT is struggling to find a reason for being.
The best case that can be made for joining BT Broadband in 2026 is that it’s highly rated by families – this is what earns BT a place on our roundup of the best broadband providers. Every single one of the BT Broadband customers we surveyed were satisfied with the parental control features offered. In an age where there’s arguably more online threats to children than ever before, that might be all the reassurance parents need.
Otherwise, it’s hard to find a good reason to get BT Broadband. It failed to trouble the scorers in any of the other award categories in our 2026 broadband users survey, with middling scores for value, speed and customer service. It’s not overwhelmingly recommended by its own customers. It doesn’t do anything particularly badly, but it doesn’t stand out in most areas either.
But if the desire to protect your children from online harms trumps all else, let’s take a closer look at what BT Broadband has to offer.
Packages and pricing
Fibre Essential, Fibre 1 and Fibre 2
Like its BT-owned stablemate, EE, BT offers three different speed tiers for those not yet in a full-fibre area, which is at least one tier too many. In practical terms, you’re going to barely feel the difference between a Fibre Essential connection running at a max speed of 36Mbits/sec and a Fibre 1 tariff running at 50Mbits/sec. In truth, both will feel slow by today’s standards.
Given the more highly rated Plusnet offers the equivalent of Fibre 2 for £2 per month less, we can’t see any great reason to plump for BT, unless you’re here for the parental controls.
Full Fibre 1, 2, 150, 300, 500 and 900
BT offers a decent spread of full fibre connections, although as always we recommend you watch out for pricing oddities as there’s no point paying the same or more for less. Case in point, at the time of writing, the Fibre 1 tariff was exactly the same price as the faster Fibre 2, and Fibre 300 was the same price as Fibre 500.
BT supplies full-fibre customers with the BT Smart Hub 2, which is based on Wi-Fi 5 technology – two generations behind the Wi-Fi 7 equipment provided by EE and others.
When you pick your package, you’ll be offered the chance to upgrade to Complete Wi-Fi, which guarantees “Wi-Fi in every corner of your home” via the use of extenders, but this comes at a steep premium of £10 per month. Likewise, Hybrid Connect, which offers 4G backup in case of broadband failures, costs an extra £7.55. That’s almost £100 a year to provide backup for a fault that’s most likely to be BT’s responsibility in the first place.
BT also offers customers the chance to add EE TV bundles and home phone services to their tariffs, as well as the option to pay £30 for one of its engineers to come and install your router equipment instead of doing it yourself. That’s a reasonable fee, although it’s not difficult to set up your own Wi-Fi.
Like Plusnet, BT doesn’t offer any speeds faster than 900Mbits/sec, so if you’re looking for the highest possible speeds, you’re going to need to look elsewhere.
All BT Broadband tariffs have £4 per month price increases baked into the contract at the start of April, so the prices below could increase by as much as £8 by the time your contract ends.
Coverage
Like Plusnet and EE, BT is tied exclusively to the Openreach network for its fibre connections. The good news is Openreach is by far the country’s biggest full-fibre network, reaching around 75% of premises in the UK.
However, rivals such as Vodafone and Sky have deals with multiple fibre networks, including Openreach, meaning they’re going to reach some areas that BT can’t with superfast connections.
Openreach also can’t match the speeds on offer from other networks, especially when it comes to uploads.
Performance and customer satisfaction
If there’s a word to describe BT Broadband’s performance in this category, it’s middling. In our 2026 broadband survey BT came fourth out of seven overall, with a set of scores that don’t highlight any particular strengths or weaknesses, bar the 100% satisfaction rating with parental controls.
Speed is definitely not BT’s strong suit. Although a very respectable 85% of its customers said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the speeds on offer, that puts it second bottom in the overall table.
Just over three quarters (78%) of customers said they were happy with BT’s customer service, but that was a score bettered by both of its BT stablemates, EE and award-winning Plusnet.
Value for money could be better too. On the face of it, 79% of customers saying they are satisfied with the value sounds like a decent score, but it’s the second worst score of the seven providers we surveyed. Again, budget-conscious Plusnet tops the table here.
Should you choose BT Broadband?
If effective parental controls are an absolute essential in your household, BT Broadband customers are universally pleased with what this provider offers. Otherwise, it’s hard to find a good reason to switch to BT Broadband in 2026.
Survey methodology
Our survey, conducted in September 2025, targeted a representative sample of 1,544 UK residents aged 18 and over.
Across 14 questions, our survey captured data on 8 broadband providers. To ensure the integrity of our analysis, we applied a minimum sample size of 50 respondents, which qualified 7 of these for analysis.
Analysis Brands:BT, Sky, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Plusnet, TalkTalk, EE, Zen Internet
Eligibile brands: BT, Sky, Virgin Media, Vodafone, Plusnet, TalkTalk, EE
