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- Some of its tariffs are relatively cheap
- Poorly rated for customer service
- Doesn’t offer gigabit-grade speeds
- Not recommended by its own customers
Let’s cut to the chase: there’s very little to recommend TalkTalk in 2026.
It finishes bottom of the pile in our survey of seven major broadband providers with scores that should make its management wince. More of the TalkTalk customers we surveyed would recommend others stay away than join the provider, which is telling in itself.
TalkTalk has never been the top dog when it comes to speeds or the quality of its customer service, but it used to be the cheapest mainstream provider. While its tariffs are still among the cheapest out there, it’s by no means so cut-rate that you can forgive its failings anymore. This year’s winner of the Expert Reviews Broadband Awards, Vodafone, is cheaper than TalkTalk on every comparable tariff bar one.
Although it partners with CityFibre, which helps rival Sky deliver connections as fast as 5Gbits/sec in some areas, TalkTalk doesn’t offer any connections faster than 900Mbits/sec – around a fifth of the speed.
Even one of TalkTalk’s best selling points – the provision of the highly regarded Amazon eero routers for customers on the fastest connections – appears to have stopped.
In short, it’s hard to see why anyone would choose TalkTalk as their new provider in 2026 unless they were married to the CEO, but let’s take a look at full details, just in case you’re tempted.
Packages and pricing
Fibre 65
The Fibre 65 package is the offering for customers who aren’t yet in a full-fibre area. It tops out at 76Mbits/sec, although many customers will see much slower speeds than that, because the old copper wiring used to provide the last leg of those connections saps the speed. The further you are from your local fibre cabinet, the slower it will be.
At £26 per month, it’s hard to see why you’d opt for TalkTalk when second-placed Plusnet is offering the same speed for £3 less per month, and winner Vodafone is £1 per month cheaper.
Full Fibre 65, Full Fibre 150, Full Fibre 500 and Full Fibre 900
TalkTalk has access to two different full-fibre networks: Openreach and CityFibre. Other providers such as Vodafone and Sky offer different tariffs and speeds for the different networks. TalkTalk has only one set of tariffs, which is admirable simplicity, but it does mean it’s not taking full advantage of the faster speeds on offer from CityFibre, capping all of its connections at 900Mbits/sec.
As ever, keep a close eye on the pricing of the various tariffs. For example, the Full Fibre 150 is £2 a month cheaper than Full Fibre 65, despite being more than twice as fast. That 150 deal is among the best prices you’ll find for that speed from any provider, but the rest of TalkTalk’s prices are a pound or two more expensive than the award winners.
When you reach the online checkout at TalkTalk, you’ll be offered various add-ons including “wall-to-wall coverage” with Total Home Wi-Fi, which uses boosters to eliminate dead spots in the home. That costs £8 per month extra, though. TalkTalk also offers an enhanced online security package for an extra £6 per month, and TalkTalk TV which includes “the UK’s favourite live channels and on-demand players” for an extra £5 per month. That looks to be a glorified Freeview box.
Coverage
As mentioned previously, TalkTalk has partnered with both Openreach and CityFibre. Openreach now covers around 63% of the country with its full-fibre network, with the vast majority of the remainder on the slower fibre-to-the-cabinet connections which are capped at 76Mbits/sec.
CityFibre passes another 4m homes, although some of those will be in areas covered by Openreach. That said, it still gives TalkTalk a larger full-fibre footprint than Plusnet, BT Broadband and EE, which rely on Openreach alone. It’s just a shame that TalkTalk doesn’t take full advantage of its CityFibre partnership by offering the faster speeds on offer from Sky and Vodafone.
Performance and customer satisfaction
It’s fair to say that TalkTalk didn’t come close to the podium in any of the categories in our 2026 broadband survey. In most, it came bottom of the pile.
Customer service is a particular sore point. Only 64% of TalkTalk customers said they were satisfied with the customer service, with 16% claiming to be dissatisfied or very dissatisfied, the poorest scores of any of the seven providers on test, and by quite some margin.
Just over a third (34%) of the TalkTalk customers we surveyed said they wouldn’t recommend the provider, compared to 28% who said they would, making TalkTalk the only company with more detractors than promoters.
Value has traditionally been TalkTalk’s stronghold, but even here it finishes bottom of the pile, with 70% of customers saying they were satisfied with the value, but 9% unhappy. For comparison, 88% of Plusnet’s customers were happy with the value on offer, with only 2% dissenting.
We’re honestly trying to find a chink of light for TalkTalk, but there isn’t any. It finished last for speed, too.
TalkTalk broadband review: Verdict
In short, we can’t recommend you take out a TalkTalk contract. It finishes bottom of the pile in all the categories that matter, it’s no cheaper than the award winners, and if anything the service is getting worse, not better. If you’re a current TalkTalk broadband customer, we’d advise looking elsewhere when your contract comes to an end.
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
