Three 5G vs Vodafone GigaCube vs Eir 5G Home

Quick verdict

Take Three if a phone on Three 5G (or 48) holds a strong signal in the room where the router will sit and you are happy with 24 months: €30 a month for the full 24 months (€25 if you already hold a Three or 48 number) is the cheapest two-year 5G home line in Ireland, and the ZTE hub is the only one of the three with antenna sockets. Take Vodafone GigaCube if you need a 3-month term or a 14-day no-cost return more than you need the lowest price — €25 is only six months of the deal, then €40. Take Eir 5G Home if Eir’s masts are the strong ones at your Eircode or you want a real 30-day contract while an Open Eir or NBI date firms up: €29.99 plus a €99 activation fee, or €39.99 on 12 months with the Huawei router free.

Scores: Three 7.8, Vodafone 7.7, Eir 7.5. The spread is price and contract, not technology. All three are a SIM in an indoor router talking to a consumer mobile cell; the radio at your address decides more than the logo.

Side-by-side, August 2026

Introductory EUR from the plans we track. “Thereafter” is the standard price once the promo ends; April rises sit on top of it. Router models are what each provider ships today — all three warn they may substitute a device if stock runs out.

One row needs a footnote. Three’s €25 promotional rate is, on Three’s own exclusive-offer page, for “existing Three Bill Pay, Three Prepay and 48 customers”; a new customer with no Three number is quoted €30 a month for 24 months, then €39.99, and that €30 is the price we rank Three on. A 48 SIM is €12.99 for a month, so the cheapest route to the €25 rate for an outsider is to buy a 48 SIM first, which also happens to be the coverage test you should be doing anyway.

Pick by mast, not by brand

The three networks do not share sites. Three’s 5G is a mix of mid-band cells in towns and low-band on older 4G masts in the country; Eir’s 99% claim leans heavily on low-band that travels far and gets through stone; Vodafone’s footprint is the narrowest claim of the three but its indoor signal in many suburbs is the one people rate. None of that tells you about your house. The only honest test is a phone, in the room, in the evening.

1. Buy three cheap SIMs. 48 rides Three, Clear rides Vodafone, GoMo rides Eir. €12.99 each, no contract. The router will see exactly the radio the phone sees, with a better antenna.
2. Test where the router will live. Not the doorstep, not the upstairs window. Wi-Fi off, speed test at 8pm and again at 10am. Write down download, upload and ping for each network. Upload under 10 Mb or ping bouncing between 30 and 150 ms is the warning, not a 200 Mb download at lunchtime.
3. Check the maps afterwards, not before. ComReg’s outdoor mobile coverage map and the three Eircode checkers at three.ie, vodafone.ie and eir.ie tell you what the network model predicts outside the building. Vodafone’s sales team runs an address check before it will take the order, which is a useful second opinion but still an outdoor one.
4. Then shop. If only one network is strong indoors, the decision is made and the prices below are academic. If two or three are, buy on term and cash.

A common result in one-off rural houses is that Eir is the only network with a usable bar indoors and Three is fine at the gate. That is the case for Eir 5G Home over Three, whatever the price gap. The reverse is common in newer estates where Three has a mid-band cell nearby. Rural ranking with the wireless and satellite alternatives: best rural broadband in Ireland.

What 24 months actually costs, April rises included

The tiles show month one. This is the full bill for a contract signed in August 2026 with the first bill in September, so April 2027 lands at bill eight and April 2028 at bill twenty. Three’s rise is €3; Vodafone’s and Eir’s are €2.50. We have applied Three’s rise to the promo rate because its pages say the charge is “subject to” the increase — ask in writing whether your promo is exempt, and if it is, Three is €66 cheaper again.

Three still wins if you stay two years: roughly €150 cheaper than Vodafone’s 24-month at the new-customer €30 (€270 on the existing-customer €25) and €300 cheaper than two years of Eir on 12 months. The order flips the moment you will not stay. Eir’s 30-day plan is the cheapest way to be online for six months (€99 plus 6 × €29.99, about €279) with nothing owed when you leave; Three on a 24-month contract for the same six months is €180 in bills and a balance-of-contract demand of around €540 on the way out. Vodafone’s 3-month term at €40 is the middle road: €240 for six months, router free, no activation fee, leave at the end of the second quarter.

Year two is where Eir hurts. €44.99 thereafter plus two Aprils is just under €50 a month by summer 2028, which is Sky or Pure Telecom fibre money for a mobile cell. If you are still on Eir 5G in year two, the fibre has not arrived and you should be pricing Imagine or re-testing Three. Year-two behaviour across every retailer: April price rises.

The catches that the plan tiles skip

• Congestion is shared with every phone on the road. All three sell the same consumer cell to handsets and routers. A rural low-band sector can drop from 150 Mb at 10am to 20 Mb at 9pm, and no plan tier buys you priority. Three’s tech-install outdoor receiver and an antenna on the ZTE hub improve signal, not cell load. If a working-from-home upload at 8pm is the job, none of the three is the right tool; see best broadband for working from home.
• Indoor signal has a cheap fix on Three only. The ZTE MC801A’s two TS9 sockets take a directional outdoor antenna for under €100 on the usual Irish resellers, and Three’s engineer-fitted outdoor receiver is the paid version. Two warnings from the 3Community and boards.ie threads: the TS9 sockets only route the mid-band 5G bands (n78), so a rural low-band cell gains nothing from the antenna, and the sockets snap if you move the cable. Vodafone’s Huawei H155-383 and Eir’s CPE Pro 5 have no sockets at all: window placement is the whole toolkit, which is exactly why both give you 14 days.
• “Unlimited” is three different small-print documents. None of the three publishes a gigabyte cap on the home plans. All three reserve fair-usage and traffic management. Vodafone’s SIM is Republic-only with no roaming; Three’s and Eir’s routers are likewise sold for use at an Irish address. Run a small business off a 5G hub and you are the user the fair-use clause was written for.
• The router is the provider’s, not yours, on a return. Vodafone’s 14 days and Three’s 30 are only no-cost if the box goes back complete. Eir’s cooling-off is the standard 14 days from delivery, and delivery can take up to 10 working days, so test the day it arrives.
• Early termination when fibre arrives. This is the one that bites. Sign 24 months with Three in August, get the Open Eir FTTH letter in February, and the exit is the balance of the contract — around €540 at €30 a month at that point. Eir’s 30-day plan and Vodafone’s 3-month term exist for exactly this house. If NBI or an Open Eir upgrade is on a dated plan, price the short term even though it costs more a month. Worked examples: early termination fees.
• Three customer service is a shop; Eir’s is the same call centre as fibre. Three has counters in most towns and a community forum where the ZTE guides live. Vodafone’s return is clean and its address check is a genuine service. Eir sells a good router with a poor reputation for reaching a human; our service bars (Three 7.6, Vodafone 8.0, Eir 7.0) say as much.

Who should pick what

Renters on a 12-month lease: Three’s 12-month plan if Three is strong indoors — €44.99 then €54.99 is dearer per month than the 24-month promo, but it halves the exit exposure and the hub goes in a bag at the end. If Vodafone is the stronger radio, its 12-month term at €35 then €40 is cheaper again. Either beats a 24-month deal that outlives the lease. Short-let options: no-contract broadband and broadband for students.

FTTC-only Eircodes: if the only wired option is Open Eir copper at 80–100 Mb, a strong 5G cell will usually beat it on download and match it on upload. Eir 5G Home is the natural fit here because Eir’s low-band footprint is the one that reaches the houses FTTC reaches, and Eir will move you to its own fibre when the cabinet is upgraded. Test Three first anyway; €30 against €39.99 is €120 a year (€180 on the existing-customer €25). Technology primer: FTTH vs FTTC vs cable.

Waiting on NBI or an Open Eir date: Eir 30-day if the date is inside a year; Vodafone 3-month if it is inside two quarters and you would rather a free router and no €99; Three 24-month only if the honest answer is “no date”. Check the Eircode on the NBI map before you decide which of those you are: NBI explained.

Existing Three or 48 mobile customers: Three, almost regardless. The €25 rate is yours, the broadband-plus-SIM bundle from €40 a month undercuts holding two separate accounts, and the coverage test is already in your pocket. Existing Vodafone mobile customers get nothing extra on the 5G home tile, so buy GigaCube on its merits (term, return, indoor signal) and not out of loyalty. Existing Eir or GoMo customers likewise see the same €39.99; the argument for Eir 5G is the mast and the 30-day plan, not a bundle.

Thick-walled houses and back-room routers: Three, because it is the only one with an antenna path and a tech-install option. If Three’s radio is the weak one and Eir’s is the strong one, Eir, but accept that the router must live at the window facing the mast.

Anyone with full fibre at the door: none of them. That is the other page.

Switching from one 5G provider to another is simpler than a fibre switch: there is no line to transfer, so order the new router, test it inside its returns window while the old one is still live, then cancel the old contract. Steps and timings: how to switch broadband. Full list of matchups: broadband comparisons.

About the author

Darragh Murphy

Broadband & Fixed-Line Specialist

Darragh Murphy has tested and compared Irish broadband services since 2018. He runs matched.ie’s real-world speed and reliability tests across fibre, cable and rural fixed-wireless connections.

8+ years analysing Irish broadband performanceTested 50+ providers including Eir, Virgin Media, Sky and SIROCertified in Cisco Networking and Openreach fibre standardsBased in Galway, regularly covers rural rollout issues