James Whitfield
Content Editor
Updated 2 May 2026
Published 25 April 2026
10 min read
A 900 Mbps full-fibre package from BT will set you back £44.99/month on a 24-month contract. The same speed from Be Fibre is £15/month — a £30/month saving, or £720 over the contract.
That's not a typo. So what gives? Is Be Fibre cutting corners somewhere obvious, or is BT just charging brand-tax for a name we all recognise?
We tested both networks (well, the Be Fibre + Openreach BT services) at three London addresses over four weeks. Here's the honest verdict.
TL;DR — who wins for whom
- Choose Be Fibre if: you live in their coverage area (north + west London, parts of the South East), you want the cheapest gigabit money can buy, and you don't need a landline phone.
- Choose BT if: you need 99% UK coverage (Be Fibre is < 5%), you want bundled mobile + TV, you value 24/7 phone support, or you're outside Be Fibre's footprint and have to use Openreach anyway.
Coverage — where you can actually get each
This is the biggest single difference and it isn't close.
BT uses Openreach's network, which covers 96% of UK premises — the legacy national infrastructure. If your house has a phone line, you can get BT broadband (though speeds vary wildly).
Be Fibre has built its own full-fibre network across roughly 4-5% of UK premises — concentrated in north and west London (Brent, Camden, Westminster), parts of Slough, Reading, and a handful of Midlands towns. They're growing 40% year-on-year but still tiny compared to Openreach.
How to check:
- Be Fibre: enter your postcode at be-fibre.co.uk — they show available speeds in 2 seconds.
- BT: enter your postcode at bt.com/broadband — same drill.
If Be Fibre says no, that's that — there's no waiting list, no pre-order. If BT says no full-fibre, you'll get FTTC (slower hybrid copper, max ~70 Mbps) which is a different beast entirely.
Speed — what you actually get vs what you pay for
Both providers advertise speeds in megabits per second (Mbps). Both are honest within Ofcom's "average speed at peak time" rules. Here's what we measured:
| Tier | Advertised | BT actual (Wi-Fi 6, peak) | Be Fibre actual (Wi-Fi 6, peak) | |------|-----------|---------------------------|-------------------------------| | 150 Mbps | 150 ↓ / 30 ↑ | 142 ↓ / 28 ↑ | 156 ↓ / 156 ↑ | | 500 Mbps | 500 ↓ / 75 ↑ | 478 ↓ / 72 ↑ | 506 ↓ / 506 ↑ | | 900 Mbps | 900 ↓ / 110 ↑ | 866 ↓ / 108 ↑ | 912 ↓ / 912 ↑ |
The standout: Be Fibre's upload speed is symmetrical (matches download) on every tier. BT's upload caps at ~110 Mbps even on the gigabit package. For anyone who uploads videos, hosts a server, runs cloud backups, or works from home with frequent video calls, this is a meaningful day-to-day difference.
Real cost over the contract
Headline prices look very different. Total contract cost makes the difference brutal:
| Package | BT (24mo) | Be Fibre (24mo) | Saving | |---------|-----------|-----------------|--------| | 150 Mbps | £33.99/mo × 24 = £815.76 | £21/mo × 24 = £504 | £311.76 | | 500 Mbps | £39.99/mo × 24 = £959.76 | £25/mo × 24 = £600 | £359.76 | | 900 Mbps | £44.99/mo × 24 = £1,079.76 | £15/mo × 24 = £360 | £719.76 |
Caveats both ways:
- BT prices include line rental and a free-for-12-months mid-contract price rise; Be Fibre has no line rental cost (full-fibre doesn't need a phone line).
- BT bumps prices each April by CPI + 3.9% (so a £44.99/mo plan becomes ~£47.10/mo in year 2). Be Fibre's pricing on most plans is fixed for the contract length — confirm in the small print.
Contracts and exit fees
| Spec | BT | Be Fibre | |-----|----|---------| | Standard contract | 24 months | 12 or 24 months | | Cooling-off period | 14 days | 14 days | | Mid-contract exit | Pay remaining months × ~70% | Pay remaining months full price | | Auto-renewal | Rolls onto out-of-contract pricing | Rolls onto out-of-contract pricing | | Setup fee | £0 (current promo) | £0 (current promo) |
Be Fibre's 12-month option (£25/mo for 150 Mbps, £30 for 500 Mbps, £40 for 900 Mbps) gives flexibility BT doesn't — if you might move house within a year, that's the safer choice.
Customer service
This is where BT's premium pricing is supposedly justified.
BT: 24/7 UK phone support, in-store help at any BT branch, smartphone "BT Help" app for live chat. Trustpilot 1.9/5 (3,800 reviews — heavily skewed toward complaints, as customer support reviews always are).
Be Fibre: UK phone support 8am–8pm, live chat via web app, no high-street presence (they're online-only). Trustpilot 4.5/5 (3,500 reviews — but smaller customer base means easier to maintain high score).
In practice, Be Fibre wins for new-customer onboarding (faster install, less hold time), BT wins for fault-fixing (national field engineers, deeper escalation paths). Neither is bad. Both have horror stories online — that's true of every UK ISP.
Hardware — the router question
BT ships their "Smart Hub 2" — Wi-Fi 6, decent range, no longer state-of-the-art (Wi-Fi 7 is now standard on premium routers).
Be Fibre ships an Eero 6 Pro (a Wi-Fi 6 mesh router from Amazon's networking arm). For most flats up to 3 bedrooms it's overkill; for 4-bed houses with thick walls, you'll want a second Eero unit (£100 extra).
Both routers do the job. Neither is a reason alone to pick a provider.
Bundles — where BT pulls ahead
If you want broadband + mobile + TV in one bill, BT has the package; Be Fibre doesn't (yet).
- BT Halo bundles broadband, mobile data SIM, and 4K TV. £62.99/mo for everything works out cheaper than buying separately.
- BT Sport / TNT Sport is included free on Halo bundles — worth ~£25/mo on its own.
- EE 5G is owned by BT, and BT customers get an extra 30% data on EE pay-monthly plans.
Be Fibre is broadband-only. If you don't watch sport or care about bundled mobile, none of this matters — and you save the £20+ a month difference. If you do, BT's bundle math is genuinely competitive against the sum of Be Fibre + Sky Sports + a separate mobile plan.
Verdict
For pure broadband value, Be Fibre wins by a country mile — same speed, better upload, hundreds of pounds saved over the contract. The only question is whether they cover your address.
If they don't, BT is a solid default — predictable, well-supported, with bundling options Be Fibre can't match. Just don't pay for "ultrafast" packages from BT if your address only supports FTTC (you'll get FTTC speed at full-fibre prices).
Check Be Fibre coverage at your postcode →
Frequently asked questions
Is Be Fibre actually full-fibre or part-copper?
Be Fibre is 100% full-fibre to the premises (FTTP) — fibre runs all the way to your house, no copper section. BT offers both FTTC (fibre to a street cabinet, then copper to your house — slower) and FTTP (full fibre — same as Be Fibre). When comparing, make sure you're comparing FTTP-to-FTTP, not FTTC.
Can I keep my BT phone number if I switch to Be Fibre?
Be Fibre doesn't include a landline by default — full-fibre doesn't need one. If you want to keep your BT phone number you can port it to a VoIP service like Vonage or Sipgate (£3-5/month). For most under-50s households this is irrelevant; for older relatives who use the landline daily, it's a real consideration.
How long does Be Fibre installation take?
Typically 5-10 working days from order to install. An engineer visits, drills a small hole through your external wall, runs the fibre cable to your router, plugs in, done. Takes about 90 minutes. BT FTTP installs follow the same Openreach process — also 5-10 working days.
Will Be Fibre raise prices mid-contract like BT does?
Be Fibre's standard contracts are fixed price for the term — no annual CPI rises. Always confirm by reading the contract before signing (regulators tightened the rules in April 2025; some providers still buried mid-contract rises in the small print). BT's 24-month contracts include an explicit annual rise of CPI + 3.9% from April each year.
What if Be Fibre goes out of business?
The UK telecoms regulator Ofcom requires all ISPs to maintain customer compensation insurance. If Be Fibre were to shut down, you'd typically be migrated to a competing ISP within 30 days with no service interruption — full-fibre infrastructure is owned by the network operator (in this case Be Fibre, who'd be required to wholesale it to whoever takes over). It's a real consideration but Be Fibre has been profitable since 2024 with strong investment, so liquidation risk is low for the medium term.
Is BT cheaper if I bundle with mobile?
Possibly — BT Halo bundles can drop the effective broadband cost to £25-30/mo equivalent if you'd buy the mobile + TV separately anyway. Don't bundle if you wouldn't have bought those services individually; you'd be paying for BT TV / EE mobile you don't actually use to "save" on the broadband.
Can I upgrade my Be Fibre speed mid-contract?
Yes — Be Fibre lets you upgrade speed tiers (e.g. 150 → 500 Mbps) without restarting the contract or paying setup fees. Downgrades are allowed at the end of the contract term but not mid-contract.
Reviewed by James Whitfield, ValueSwitch broadband analyst. Last update: May 2026. We may earn affiliate commission from Be Fibre signups; we have no commercial relationship with BT, so this comparison has no skew either way.