Telecommunications in the United Kingdom

Telecommunications in the United Kingdom have evolved from the early days of the telegraph to modern fibre broadband and high-speed 5G networks.

It was the largest private telecoms network in Britain, consisting of 17,000 route kilometres of fibre optic and copper cable which connected every major city and town in the country and provided links to continental Europe through the Channel Tunnel.

[7] BR also operated its own national trunked radio network providing dedicated train-to-shore mobile communications, and in the early 1980s BR helped establish Mercury Communications', now C&WC, core infrastructure by laying a resilient 'figure-of-eight' fibre optic network alongside Britain's railway lines, spanning London, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester.

There are several companies with national fibre networks, including BT, Level 3 Communications, Virgin Media, Cable & Wireless, Easynet and Thus.

[citation needed] Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection of free-to-air, free-to-view and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are hundreds of channels for consumers as well as on-demand content.

Since 24 October 2012, all television broadcasts in the United Kingdom have been in a digital format, following the end of analogue transmissions in Northern Ireland.

At the end of 2004, 52% of households (12.6 million) were reported to have access to the internet (Source: Office for National Statistics Omnibus Survey).

EE,[23] Vodafone[24] and Three[25] have completed their switch-offs, with O2 expected to follow in 2025, starting with the City of Durham in April.

O2 launched its 4G network on 29 August 2013, initially in London, Leeds and Bradford with a further 13 cities added by the end of 2013.

[28] Three commenced 4G services in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Reading, Wolverhampton and the Black country in December 2013 albeit with a limited number of subscribers to evaluate its implementation.

Full rollout to remaining subscribers commenced on 5 February 2014 on a phased basis via a silent SIM update.

[36] When mobile cellular networks were first rolled out, there were various numbers beginning 03 through 09 in use, these being interspersed between the various existing geographic area codes.

[citation needed] Sky is the second biggest player in the residential telephone line market.

[41] In Q2 2024, the total number of fixed voice lines (including PSTN, ISDN and VoIP) was 25.4 million, a fall of 2.6% compared to the previous year.

[42] The switched telephone network (both PSTN and ISDN) is due to be turned off on 31 January 2027, after customers are moved to voice over IP services.