Airband broadband review 2025: Is it any good?

Dan Howdle • March 21st, 2025

Airband is an altnet broadband provider offering full fibre broadband speeds of up to 900Mbps. Like all altnets, it's not available country-wide, with Airband found primarily in the West Midlands, Wales and the South West. Unlike other altnets, Airband also strives to bring 'fixed line wireless' broadband – a line-of-sight radio wave solution – to rural locations that are otherwise unreachable by the UK's primary fibre networks. Let's take a closer look.

Key features

Here’s a quick look at what you can expect to find in a Airband broadband deal:

Download speeds	40Mbps, 150Mbps, 300Mbps, 400Mbps, 600Mbps, 900Mbps
Upload speeds	Symmetrical
Broadband	Full Fibre up to 900Mbps, Fixed Wireless up to 400Mbps
Home Phone	VoIP
Packages available	Broadband
Router	Nokia G6 router and Beacon 2 WiFi 6 Mesh
Contract lengths	24 months
Prices from	£33 per month (half price for first six months at time of writing)

Is Airband broadband any good?

Against a background of other altnet (alternative network) providers, Airband has a lot going for it – it's doing quite a bit that's unique and unusual. Sure, you'll see so-called 'gigabit' speeds at the top end of it's offering, no mid-contract price rises, a good WiFi 6 router, and the option to add additional mesh routers to your home network (albeit at extra cost on packages of 300Mbps or less). But Airband, as its name suggests, also offers broadband over the airwaves, and not via a 4G or 5G mobile network, but via line-of-sight radio signal.

Primarily, this latter technology is aimed at easily serving remote village communities for whom fast fibre broadband remains the stuff of myth. Basically, you have a receiver fitted to the exterior of your home, pointed at the transmitter, which can be a telegraph poll, or in some examples of this technology, a church spire or other tall, manmade structure. The speeds you'll get over what Airband refers to as 'fixed wireless' broadband are impressive (up to 400Mbps), which for some remote communities may constitute a hundred times faster than they can currently get.

In terms of its own Full Fibre network, as with many altnets, Airband uses Openreach/BT's ducts and polls to reach customers, but doesn't use any of its cables or tech. That means getting a new line to you will never mean digging up your street.

And Airband has become a lot more competitive recently price-wise where up until last year it was rather pricey compared to the local competition. But ultimately, it all comes down to what you can get. If you can't get Virgin, but you can get Airband, you're going to rightly grab it with both hands. So where can you get it exactly?

Availability

Airband is the only altnet we've reviewed where we've uncovered no feasible means of knowing exactly which locations can get it. Airband does provide a 'blob' map that roughly shows the areas across which it's broadly available, but even if you live within the blob there's still going to be a strong chance you can't get it. The only reliable way to know if it's available to you is to visit Airband's website and enter your postcode.

Broadly, Airband is available in parts of:

• Devon
• Cheshire
• Gloucestershire
• Herefordshire
• Oxfordshire
• Shropshire
• Somerset
• Wales
• Warwickshire
• Worcestershire

Check availability

Broadband speeds

Our look at Airband's offering is a mixed bag. In addition to its four Full Fibre speeds, Airband also offers three 'Airspeed' packages for homes Full Fibre cannot yet reach.

Airspeed packages

AirSpeed 40: AirSpeed 40 is Airband’s entry-level fixed wireless package, offering 40Mbps download speeds with unlimited usage. It includes a WiFi 6 mesh router and is ideal for smaller households or light internet users. The price starts at £16.50/month for the first 6 months, then rises to £33/month. A 24-month contract applies with no mid-term price hikes, and installation is free following a site survey.

AirSpeed 150: With speeds up to 150Mbps, AirSpeed 150 suits most households, easily handling multiple devices and even 4K streaming. This package includes a WiFi 6 mesh router, free installation, and a 24-month contract. The cost is £19/month for 6 months, then £38/month. This package offers a good balance of speed and value, although larger homes may need additional WiFi boosters.

AirSpeed 400: Offering 400Mbps, AirSpeed 400 is ideal for gamers, large households, or those downloading large files. As with the other packages, it comes with a WiFi 6 mesh router, free installation, and a 24-month contract. Priced at £24/month for 6 months, then £48/month, it provides the fastest speeds Airband offers, ensuring seamless online experiences even under heavy usage.

Full Fibre packages

Fibre 150: 150Mbps is fast enough for most households. Streaming in 4K – one of the heaviest use cases for home broadband – will only take up between 15Mbps (Amazon Prime Video) and 40Mbps (Apple TV+/iTunes), so even if you're doing that you'll have plenty of bandwidth to spare. This package includes a WiFi 6 mesh router, free installation, and costs £16.50/month for 6 months, then £33/month, on a 24-month contract.

Fibre 300: Twice as fast as Fibre 150, we're now into the zone where there's nothing extra you can do here that you couldn't do with the slower speed, but your download times will be cut in half. Something to consider, especially if you're a gamer. Comes with a WiFi 6 mesh router, free installation, and costs £19/month for 6 months, then £38/month, on a 24-month contract.

Fibre 600: Twice as fast again. And again it's just your download times that'll benefit. If you're a gamer especially, this means new games and updates will download very fast indeed. At this speed or greater, Airband supplies you with two WiFi 6 mesh routers, free installation, and it’s £24/month for 9 months, then £48/month, on a 24-month contract.

Fibre 900: Same deal as Fibre 600. Even faster downloads. Also comes with two WiFi 6 mesh routers for wider wifi coverage of your home. Costs £29/month for 12 months, then £58/month, on a 24-month contract with free installation.

Not sure which package to pick? Our guide to deciding what broadband speed you need has all the answers.

Upload speeds

Since last year, Airband's upload speeds have become symmetrical. That means your upload speeds are going to be as fast as your download speeds. For example, if you take out the 300Mbps package your upload speed will also be 300Mbps. What we will say though is that most home users really don't need a fast upload speed. Call it a nice to have.

Landline calling packages

Most altnets don't provide a phoneline. They feed into your home over their own wire, so there's nothing stopping their customers from maintaining a landline with another provider. And quite apart from that landlines are on their way out. If you've seen a graph of landline usage over the last five years or so it's really quite astonishing. It's fallen off a cliff. So why provide a service very few people want or need?

We commend Airband then for doing it anyway. It doesn't offer a traditional analogue phone line, but is does offer a VoIP (digital) line if you want one. If you want or need a landline and you want or need it from Airband, just talk to them about it when you sign up.

Routers and installation

Airband has updated its equipment offerings to enhance user experience. They now provide the Nokia WiFi Beacon G6 router, a high-performance Wi-Fi 6 device, ensuring fast and reliable internet connectivity. For packages of 600Mbps or faster, Airband includes two of these routers to ensure optimal coverage throughout your home. For packages below 600Mbps, a single router is provided, with the option to add additional units at an extra cost.

Nokia WiFi Beacon G6 technical specifications:

Specification	Details
Wireless Standard	Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax)
Wireless Bands	Dual-band
Spatial Streams	4x4 MIMO on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands
Maximum Wireless Speed	Up to 6 Gbps
Processor	1.4 GHz quad-core processor
Mesh Technology	EasyMesh™ compliant, supporting self-healing and self-optimizing networks
Setup	Easy setup via mobile app
MU-MIMO	Yes
Security	WPA3
Guest Network	Yes
Parental Controls	Yes
Coverage	Up to 225 m² (2,500 sq. ft) per unit

For extended coverage, Airband utilises the Nokia WiFi Beacon 2 units, which seamlessly integrate with the Beacon G6 to form a unified mesh network. This setup ensures consistent Wi-Fi coverage, eliminating dead zones and providing a reliable connection throughout your home. There's no Wi-Fi guarantee (ensuring a good speed in every room or some sort of money back), but to be honest this is such a good setup we doubt anyone will need one.

Nokia WiFi Beacon 2 technical specifications:

Specification	Details
Wireless Standard	Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax)
Wireless Bands	Dual-band
Spatial Streams	2x2 MIMO on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands
Maximum Wireless Speed	Up to 1.8 Gbps
Mesh Technology	EasyMesh™ compliant, supporting self-healing and self-optimising networks
Setup	Easy setup via mobile app
MU-MIMO	Yes
Security	WPA3
Guest Network	Yes
Parental Controls	Yes
Coverage	Up to 140 m² (1,500 sq. ft) per unit

Installation

Airband installation will depend on the technology you're having installed. Full fibre is a fairly typical affair, with Airband bringing the network to your home either via under-street ducts that already exist, or via telegraph polls. The specifics of that will vary from home to home, but from the customer's point of view it amounts to something akin to what you're likely used to: You sign up, schedule an installation day, and make sure you're home for the engineer.

The big difference with Airband comes when you're somewhere you can get its fixed wireless broadband. Installation will then involved fitting a receiver to the side of your home, and from that receiver running a cable through your wall to your router. The functional differences are small, but you will end up with sonething akin to a Sky satellite dish on the side of your home. Just something to bear in mind.

Customer service

Broadband providers with less than 1.5% market share aren't included in Ofcom's annual customer service reporting. However, you can see how it's doing on Trustpilot.

Although Airband's Trustpilot score averages 4.3 out of five stars, that actually indicates an improvement since we last looked at the provider. With an improvement in both customer service and pricing we're going to be raising the score for Airband as a result.

When things go smoothly, Airband's customers couldn't be happier. But when technical issues manifest, a lot of the complaints appear to be about how Airband dealt with them, both in terms of speed and efficacy. A common perception among complainants is that there simply aren't enough support staff to deal with the growing number of customers on its expanding network.

Our verdict: Average

There's nothing technically wrong with the service Airband offers, and a lot to love. The router's great, the speeds are good, and the fixed wireless technology it's able to offer homes that can't get fast fibre broadband is to be commended. Plus, it has a lot of happy customers.

What's more, Airband has significantly improved its pricing of late, which was one of our major gripes the last time we evaluated their service. Airband is pretty competitive now, even though the entry level package is a little more expensive than it was.

You won't find any flex in the contract lengths. It's 24 months or nowt. And the fact that one in five of Airband's customers gives the provider one star out of five, well, that could still do with some improvement. If Airband is the only way you can get fast broadband to your home, go for it, and it's also a very solid option even if you have a variety of providers available.

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