The money: Pure Fibre 500 is €35 → €50 broadband-only, or €35 → €55 with the phone bundle; Pure Fibre 1000 is €40 → €70; all 12-month, free installation, and puretelecom.ie sells the fibre with the words “No Annual Price Adjustment” on the tile (we still say confirm it on the order summary). Eir’s 500 Mb is €34.99 → €75.99; 1 Gb is €39.99 flat on a 24-month lock, then €85.99; 5 Gb is €49.99 → €89.99 — and from April 2027 every Eir broadband bill rises a flat €4 each April. Over 24 months the 500 Mb fight is Pure €1,020 against Eir ~€1,332 before the April euros. The gig is the reverse: Eir ~€960 plus April rises, Pure €1,320. Eir’s gig is the one tier where the incumbent is genuinely cheaper — for exactly 24 months.
So: take Pure when the house wants 100 or 500 Mb, when you would rather not diary a Contract Change Notification, when NBI or SIRO is at the pole, or when “a person in Citywest answers” is worth a few euro. Take Eir when you want 1 Gb for 24 months at €39.99 and will switch the day the lock ends, or when Eir is the only wired retailer that can complete the order at your Eircode. Everyone in Ireland, ranked: best broadband for Ireland.
Quick comparison
Side by side from published August 2026 prices and contract terms — the same data behind our best-broadband ranking. Green highlights the better figure on that row. Speeds are advertised headlines, not lab results we invented. Availability is always by Eircode.
| Pure Telecom | Eir | |
|---|---|---|
| Our score | 9.1 | 8.3 |
| Intro from | €30 | €34.99 |
| Thereafter from | €40 | €75.99 |
| Headline speed | 500 Mb | 500 Mb |
| Annual rise | No | Yes |
| Networks | Open Eir FTTH, Open Eir FTTC, SIRO, NBI | Open Eir FTTH, Open Eir FTTC, NBI, 5G home |
| TV bundle | No | Yes |
The 500 Mb Pure wins by €310 — and the gig Eir wins by €360, until month 25
Start with the tier most households actually buy. Pure Fibre 500 is €35 for 12 months then €50 (€55 with the phone bundle); Eir’s 500 Mb is €34.99 then €75.99. Month one is a coin toss (one cent). Month thirteen is a €26 gap every month. Across 24 months that is €1,020 at Pure against about €1,332 at Eir, and the Eir figure is before the flat €4 rise that hits from April 2027 — sign in August 2026 and roughly sixteen of those 24 months carry it, another €64 or so. Same 500/100 Open Eir profile on both, so the extra €310 buys nothing. Value score: Pure 9.0, Eir 7.0.
Now the tier where we have to be fair to the incumbent. Eir’s 1 Gb is €39.99 flat for 24 months — no thereafter inside the contract, because the contract is the thereafter. That is about €960 over two years, or roughly €1,025 with the April 2027 and 2028 rises counted in. Pure Fibre 1000 is €40 → €70: €1,320. Both are 1000/200 on Open Eir, and Eir’s landing zone in year three is €85.99 plus the accumulated €4s against Pure’s €70 — but if your question is “cheapest gigabit for two years,” the answer on this page is Eir, not the independent. Just note the 12-month version of Eir’s gig carries a €149.99 installation fee. Cheapest intros across every brand: cheapest broadband in Ireland.
Who actually turns up when the fibre breaks
The myth to kill: “Eir fixes it faster because they own the line.” On an Open Eir FTTH order the install and every subsequent fault visit is done by Open Eir field engineers and their contractors — the same crews, the same wholesale ticket queue, whether the retailer on the bill is Eir, Pure, Sky or Vodafone. The ONT on your wall is Open Eir’s; the router behind it is the retailer’s. ComReg requires Open Eir to treat its own retail arm and third-party retailers on equivalent wholesale terms. What the retailer controls is the first call: diagnosing whether it is the router, the PPPoE/VLAN config or the line, and raising the Open Eir ticket cleanly. That is where Pure’s short queue is the practical advantage and Eir’s scale is not.
The honest nuance: Eir retail and Open Eir sit inside one company, so an Eir agent can sometimes see network status or an engineer slot that a third-party agent has to ask for. It is a convenience, not a faster SLA. The bigger network difference runs the other way. Pure also retails SIRO (ESB-pole fibre, symmetrical) and NBI (the rural National Broadband Plan); Eir retails NBI too and adds its own 5G home, but it does not sell SIRO. If the Eircode checker says SIRO, Eir is not in the race; if it says NBI, both are, and the contract decides. Which network is under your house: Open Eir vs SIRO vs NBI vs Virgin. SIRO vs Open Eir at the same address: SIRO vs Open Eir.
Same 500/100 and 1000/200 on both — and what 5 Gb is for
Download and upload are both a wash on Open Eir FTTH: both sell 500 Mb and 1 Gb on the same glass with the same Open Eir profile. Eir’s tiers are 500/100, 1000/200 and 5000/500; Pure Fibre 500 is 500/100 and Pure Fibre 1000 is 1000/200. The symmetrical option is SIRO, which Pure sells where the ESB poles have it and Eir does not sell at all — for a household uploading 4K footage, running backups or sitting on two video calls all day, that is the upload argument, and it belongs to Pure by default. Speed scores: Pure 8.6, Eir 8.5.
Eir’s 5 Gb at €49.99 → €89.99 is real where the exchange has the XGS-PON upgrade, ships with a Wi-Fi 7 hub, and is faster than anything on Pure’s list. It is also faster than almost any house can use — a single Wi-Fi client will not see it, and most laptops have a 1 Gb port. Buy it if you have a wired 10 Gb switch and a reason; do not buy it because the number is bigger. The FTTC trap applies to both: Pure and Eir each sell Open Eir fibre-to-the-cabinet at around 100 Mb on copper. If your quote says “fibre” and the speed is 100 Mb, ask which. Sizing the house: what speed do I need. Why the advertised number is not your number: not getting the advertised speed.
“No Annual Price Adjustment” vs a €4 letter every April
This is the widest gap on the page: contract score Pure 9.4, Eir 6.2. Pure’s fibre is sold on puretelecom.ie with “Free Connection & No Annual Price Adjustment” beside the plan, and ComReg Compare lists Pure among the retailers with plans carrying no built-in annual increase. Thereafter still exists — €35 to €50 on 500 Mb, €40 to €70 on the gig — but it is a one-off step at month 13, printed on day one, and nothing else moves. Every Pure plan we list is 12 months, so the exit is never more than a year away. Our standing caveat: “no annual adjustment” is the tile, the order summary is the contract. Read the PDF they email you.
Eir has replaced its old CPI+3% clause with a published flat €4 each April from 2027 on broadband; anyone who signs or re-contracts after 1 March 2026 is spared the April 2026 rise and meets the first one in April 2027. The rise applies inside the contract. The saving grace is the Contract Change Notification: a mid-contract price change can open a penalty-free exit window if you act on it, and Eir’s 24-month gig at €39.99 is precisely the product where you want that letter filed, not binned. Eir’s 500 Mb is 12-month; the 1 Gb and 5 Gb are 24. What the April letter actually says and the calendar for using it: April price rises. Leaving early costs: early termination fees.
Eir reaches the last copper pair; Pure reaches the NBI pole Eir ignores
Coverage score is Eir’s round: 9.6 against Pure’s 8.4. Owning Open Eir means Eir will take an order at the remote Open Eir FTTH or FTTC address where a smaller retailer’s checker returns nothing, and it has its own 5G home router for the house that has neither. If the fixed-line map is a row of noes, the incumbent is often the last yes. That is a legitimate reason to sign, provided you know what the plan costs in month 13.
The inverse is the SIRO story Eir cannot tell. Where the National Broadband Plan has passed the premises, NBI sells only through retailers — Pure is on that list and so, now, is Eir (eir.ie/nbi), so a one-off house in Leitrim or Kerry with NBI at the pole can order the gig through either and should pick on thereafter. SIRO towns are different: Pure (like Digiweb, Sky and Vodafone) can place the symmetrical order and Eir cannot; Eir will offer its own Open Eir line or 5G instead. Check before you believe either logo: check broadband by Eircode. If NBI is “coming”: when is NBI coming. Rural shortlist: best rural broadband.
Year-two budgeters and NBI farms vs gig bargain-hunters and one-bill households
Pure is for the household that reads the thereafter column first. 100 Mb at €30 → €40 for the couple who stream and email; Pure Fibre 500 at €35 → €50 for most families, or €35 → €55 with the phone bundle for the house that still has Granny on the landline (unlimited local and national calls included); Pure Fibre 1000 at €40 → €70 for the home office. It is for the SIRO Eircode Eir will not serve, and for anyone who has already done one round with Eir’s April letter and does not want another. Skip Pure if you want the cheapest two-year gig (Eir), live sport on the same bill (Sky), or a Virgin cable street.
Eir is for two people. The first wants 1 Gb, will pay €39.99 for 24 months, and has a calendar reminder for the day the lock ends — that person saves real money over Pure’s gig and should not be talked out of it. The second lives where Open Eir is the only wire, or already pays Eir mobile and can stack the broadband discount and the TV box for a single bill. Eir is not for the 500 Mb buyer who assumes the owner must be cheapest; that buyer pays €26 a month more from month 13. Students and sharers on 12-month leases: best broadband for students. Working from home: best broadband for working from home.
A Citywest phone room vs the incumbent’s IVR — and the routers they post you
Service score: Pure 9.1, Eir 7.2. Pure’s support line is Irish, staffed Mon–Fri 8am–8pm and Sat 9am–5pm, and the recurring boards.ie remark is that you get a person with an Irish accent quickly; Trustpilot sits around 4.1/5 on a small review count, with the sour notes being install delays on wholesale lines and the occasional billing dispute over a contract start date. Eir has a far larger review base — over 3,000 on Trustpilot — and the 2026 complaints are the familiar ones: installation windows missed, calls dropped after the account number, multi-month waits for an FTTH install that was live 100 metres away. Eir says its average care-line wait has been about five minutes; the reviews disagree often enough to matter.
Kit: Eir posts the Sagemcom F3000 fibre box on standard FTTH (dual-band Wi-Fi 5, four gigabit ports) and a newer Wi-Fi 6/7 Smart WiFi hub on the top tiers, with a mesh option to buy. Pure ships a Zyxel or Huawei router depending on line type — functional, not flashy — and is happy for you to hang your own router off the Open Eir ONT (DHCP, VLAN 10 on FTTH). Add-ons: Eir TV is €14.99 a month with an Android TV box plus a €9.99 activation; Pure has no TV at all, only the phone bundle. Neither requires a landline on fibre. Mesh and dead spots are your problem on both: Wi-Fi dead zones. Landline question: do I need a landline. TV on the bill: broadband and TV bundles.
Which should you choose?
It comes down to the line at the house, then the bill. Here’s the quick way to decide.
Choose Pure Telecom if
Your Eircode has Open Eir FTTH, SIRO or NBI and 100 Mb or 500 Mb is the honest need — Pure’s €35 → €50 beats Eir’s €34.99 → €75.99 by roughly €310 over two years before Eir’s April €4 lands. You want an Irish-owned retailer with a short queue (Mon–Fri 8am–8pm, Sat 9am–5pm), fibre with no landline or a phone bundle with unlimited local and national calls, and you would rather the bill never carried a built-in April rise at all.
Check Pure Telecom →
Choose Eir if
You want the gig and you want it cheap for two years — Eir’s 1 Gb at €39.99 flat on 24 months is the cheapest gigabit-for-two-years deal between these two, even after the April 2027 and 2028 €4 rises, as long as you leave before it becomes €85.99. Or Eir is the only retailer whose checker says yes at a remote Open Eir address. Or you already pay Eir mobile and the one-bill discount is real money. In every case you diary the contract end before the €75.99 or €85.99 thereafter arrives.
Check Eir →Advertiser disclosure: we earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. This never affects our scores or the winner of each round.
