Your most reliable broadband provider of 2026

EE offers a wide range of packages, with no fewer than six different speed tiers for those who live in a full-fibre area. It’s arguably too much choice. Not many people would notice a day-to-day difference in a connection running at 300Mbits/sec compared to 500Mbits/sec, for example.

At the top end, EE offers two packages with a nippy download speed of 1.6Gbits/sec. These are designed for busy households where multiple people are streaming content at the same time, or for gamers. The gamers package is more expensive because it includes a 12-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass, although over the course of two years, you’d be better off buying that separately and going for the ‘Busiest Home Bundle’. These high-end packages come with Wi-Fi 7 routers, which are the latest standard.

EE’s not cheap, though. The same speeds on Plusnet are between £4 and £7 per month cheaper.

Coverage

Score: 8/10

As part of the BT Group, EE relies on the Openreach network. Openreach reaches more homes in the UK than any other fibre network, but it’s not as fast as some of its rivals.

The latest figures show that Openreach’s full-fibre network now reaches almost six out of ten homes in the UK, with almost all of the remainder still on the older fibre-to-the-cabinet connections, which limit download speeds to 76Mbits/sec at best.

Rivals such as Vodafone and Sky can offer much faster speeds in some areas, because they’ve signed deals with CityFibre as well as Openreach.

Speed

Score: 8/10

EE is certainly up there when it comes to delivering speed. Three-quarters of the customers we surveyed were happy with the speeds on offer; only five per cent were dissatisfied. So much of the in-home speed depends on the Wi-Fi router, so EE’s decision to offer the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard on its premium packages is certainly unusual and forward-thinking.

However, the Openreach network that EE relies on is much slower than rivals such as CityFibre, especially when it comes to upload speeds. That means EE can’t match rivals such as Sky, which now offers speeds of up to 5Gbits/sec.

Reliability

Score: 9/10

According to the Telegraph readers we surveyed, no provider offers greater reliability than EE. Almost half of EE customers described the reliability as “very good”, with another 31 per cent describing it as “good”.

A consistent, reliable broadband service is arguably better than a superfast one, and EE scores well in this regard. “It works and is reliable,” said one Telegraph reader. “That’s all I ask.”

Customer service

Score: 7/10

EE puts up a decent show when it comes to customer service. Two-thirds of the customers we surveyed were happy with the quality of support and only six per cent rated it poorly.

Getting through to customer service in the first place appears to be slightly trickier, though. Here, 66 per cent said they were happy, but 11 per cent were unimpressed. It’s a common gripe with the bigger providers, especially during peak hours. On the plus side, with reliability looking so strong, you hopefully won’t have to call the support lines all that often.