Anyone who has flicked through a British magazine or website and sees broadband available for as little as £5 a month can be forgiven for thinking broadband is still a rip-off in Ireland.
But if you are in an area with good broadband options, and you shop around, there are some bargain deals.
Here's a quick guide to what we'll cover in this section. If you have any tips or know of some new broadband bargains just email us at money@rte.ie
Broadband for as little as €10
You can get broadband for as little as €10 a month. Both 3 and Wi-max offer this via a mobile dongle.
More information on alternatives to landline here
For the most part though, we as a nation are paying around €40 to €60 a month for broadband at home.
If you’re in an area outside the main towns and cities where broadband quality is poor it’s more difficult. You may have to fork out as much as €600 euro for satellite broadband.
Broadband in remote rural areas for €19
On the other hand if you live in an isolated area you can avail of a government-funded scheme designed to help the 241,000 designated homes that are outside the reach of either a mobile network or the Eircom network. That will get you broadband for just €19.99.
More information on broadband scheme.
Download limits increasingly important
For the majority of the 1.4m households, who do have options, there are two things to bear in mind when shopping around – the download speed and the separate download monthly limits.
This is particularly important for those who love streaming TV or more especially gamers where latent speeds can be the difference between a win and a loss.
These days broadband companies are offering download speeds from 3Mb up as entry level (the starting point used to be 1Mb) but watch out for the monthly limits if you’re a gamer. If you go over your monthly limit you will be charged.
Remember broadband is not just over the phone
The second thing to remember is broadband is delivered in so many different ways – via a landline (and Eircom is not the only option here), via your cable TV company, via mobile phone, via a broadband transmitter network like Wimax, via satellites.
Finally, remember the cheapest option isn’t always the best solution.
The broadband-for-a-tenner, via a dongle solution has advantages and disadvantages – you can fit the stick in your pocket and plug it into any computer, but unless a wireless router at home, it doesn’t get you broadband on a number of devices at once.
Our RTE web team have independently researched most of the options available and creating the tip-sheets below.
You can also go to ComReg for a useful table comparing prices.
So research the options in the area and bargain hard.
Quick links
Basic price list of all the top providers
Callcosts comparisons – www.callcosts.ie
Broadband in remote rural areas
Alternatives to landline broadband: mobile, wireless, satellite and more
Broadband operators
Eircom
UPC
Vodafone broadband
O2 broadband
Meteor
Three - National Broadband Scheme (for rural areas)
Digiweb
Magnet
Satellite Broadband
Home vision
Clearwire (now Imagine)
Perlico
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Save money - ditch Eircom
If, like most people you use your mobile phone more than your landline, ditch Eircom and get someone else to pay your line rental which costs €25.47 a month. Rivals like Vodafone offer to pay your line rental if you get broadband.
But if you really haven't any good use for a landline anymore, consider a mobile phone option, although watch out for
Eircom’s cheapest package including line rental is €46.79, but Vodafone, which pays your line rental will do the same package for €38 – a saving of €3.21 a month. Digiweb is another provider whose landline entry-level service is just €25 a month.
The cheapest way to get broadband is via a dongle which will cost €20 a month. All the mobile phone companies offer this now and the likes of O2 will lend you a dongle first to see if it works fully in your area before you have to commit.
Watch out for offers on dongles as this is becoming a very competitive area.
Also review your mobile phone account – you may well be able to make savings by getting your mobile and broadband services from one operator. Broadband companies are falling over themselves to offer free offpeak phone calls, you might find that by using the landline at home more often you can save money on your mobile bill.
Mind your monthly downloads
We’re doing it more and more, but did you know that streaming TV on the net guzzles your download allowance every month.
If you don’t do it too often you probably won’t bust the limit, which is often set at 50GB a month, but if you are a YouTube addict or have got into watching the RTE player very often, be careful it doesn’t go over your limit and incur extra costs
Most phone companies throw in free local and landline calls off peak so don’t let that confuse you.
But if you are a heavy user of the iplayer or the Channel 4 on demand service or watch Sky Sports on your computer, the thing you need to watch out for is the limit on monthly downloads. Same for gamers.
Digiweb (which bought Smart) offers the highest monthly speed of 170GB. That’s 200 hours of video streaming a month, which is significant. Imagine and Clear Wire (clear wire) offer unlimited monthly downloads.
