Skip the phone on Open Eir FTTH, SIRO, NBI, Virgin cable or Virgin fibre, 5G home and Starlink. The internet does not ride a PSTN pair there. Paying for a voice bundle is optional — Pure, Eir, Sky and Virgin will sell you one if you actually use the number.
Pause on FTTC. That product still uses the copper last stretch. You may never take a “landline package” and still be on a phone line in the engineering sense. Check the order for FTTH vs FTTC before you compare it to a SIRO gigabit.
By network
Retail brand is not the network. Sky, Vodafone, Pure Telecom and Digiweb sell other people’s fibre. Virgin and Starlink do not. The landline question follows the technology at the Eircode, which is why the Open Eir vs SIRO vs NBI vs Virgin page exists.
| Network | Phone line needed? | What actually arrives at the house |
|---|---|---|
| Open Eir FTTH | No | Fibre to the home. An ONT on the wall, then your router. No copper pair required for broadband. Sold by Eir, Sky, Vodafone, Pure, Digiweb and others. |
| Open Eir FTTC | Copper still in play | Fibre to the green cabinet, copper from there to the socket. Typical last-stretch speeds around 100 Mb, weaker upload. This is the product that still behaves like a phone line even if you never buy voice. Eir still sells it; other Open Eir retailers may too. |
| SIRO | No | Full fibre on ESB poles (Vodafone + ESB wholesale). Symmetrical upload is the point. No landline. Vodafone, Sky, Pure, Digiweb, Imagine where they have access. |
| NBI | No | Rural National Broadband Plan fibre to the premises. You buy from a retailer (Digiweb, Sky, Vodafone, Pure, Imagine…), not from NBI. No copper phone line. |
| Virgin cable | No | Virgin’s own coax network. Independent of Open Eir and of the PSTN. True no-landline broadband on a passed street. Upload is the classic cable catch versus SIRO/FTTH. |
| Virgin fibre | No | Virgin’s own fibre build, still not Open Eir. No landline. Coverage is the same urban/suburban question as cable — check the postcode, not the national ad. |
| 5G home | No | Indoor (sometimes outdoor) router on a mobile mast. Three, Imagine, Eir and Vodafone 5G home. No engineer, no landline, no Open Eir calendar. Evening cell congestion is real. |
| Fixed wireless | No | Mast to an antenna or CPE on the house. Imagine’s rural product, plus leftovers from specialists. No phone line. Throughput is line-of-sight and load, not a wired guarantee. |
| Satellite | No | Starlink dish, clear view of the sky. Rolling monthly residential, no landline. The honest last resort when fibre, cable and 5G are all no — not a toy on a SIRO street. |
Every retailer we score lists landline required: no on the plans in the dataset. That is the retail product flag. It does not rewrite FTTC physics. If the order says FTTC, you are still on copper to the door.
FTTC and copper
ADSL used the phone line. Fibre-to-the-cabinet kept the last stretch of that pair and called the result “fibre” in a lot of Irish advertising. The cabinet is fibre; your gable is copper. Typical real-world download is in a different league from 500 Mb FTTH, and upload is why video calls feel worse.
You can often decline a voice package on FTTC and still be using the pair. That is “no landline bill” with a landline in the wall. It is not the same as SIRO or Open Eir FTTH. If an Eir, Sky or Vodafone checker returns ~100 Mb “fibre”, assume FTTC until the order says FTTH. Walk-through of the three wired types: FTTH vs FTTC vs cable.
Cooling-off exists for this. If you ordered 500 Mb and the engineer hangs copper, the 14-day distance-selling window is how you unwind before an early-termination fee exists. After that you are in the term. Check the technology before day 14, not after the first slow evening.
If you still want a phone
Wanting a house number is not the same as needing copper. On FTTH, SIRO, NBI and cable, voice is usually a VoIP add-on on the same router. Pure Telecom’s 500 Mb + phone bundle (€35 intro / €45 thereafter as of August 2026) is the explicit version; Eir, Sky, Virgin and Vodafone will sell TV-and-talk packs too.
- Take it if a relative still dials the house, or a small business number is printed on a van.
- Skip it if everyone has a mobile. You are paying for a second ringing thing.
- Port the old number onto VoIP if you care about the digits; do not keep an entire FTTC product just to freeze a 01 / 021 / 091 line in amber.
Plans that do not force a phone are collected on broadband without a landline. This page is the network logic behind that list.
Power cuts and 999
The honest reason people kept copper was not cheap evening calls. A PSTN handset could sometimes still get a dial tone when the house lights were out, because the exchange powered the pair. Fibre ONTs, Virgin modems, 5G hubs and Starlink dishes do not. They need electricity. A “digital landline” on fibre is just another app on that router — it dies in the same blackout.
For emergencies: a charged mobile. If you lose mains often, a small UPS on the ONT and router is a more serious answer than a €10/month voice bolt-on. 999 / 112 on the mobile network does not need your broadband account at all.
Switching provider on full fibre is gaining-provider led under ComReg — see how to switch. You are moving a broadband service, not asking permission from a phone company to unplug a socket. If an April CCN is why you are leaving, use that window so you do not also pay an ETF: April price rises.
