Who owns 48 months.ie

News Reviews. Goosed Letter Join the team Podcast Disclosure. Sign in. Forgot your password? Get help. Password recovery. Ads To Pay The Bills. You Might Also Like. Yes, when you sign up with 48 you will get the choice to keep your existing mobile number or select a new number.

Full details about any other restrictions e. Yes, to join a SIM-only plan you will need to unlock your phone. You may need to contact your current mobile phone provider, but you may like to read our guide about unlocking your phone first. Prepay means you pay upfront for your data, calls and texts. Whether prepay is cheaper depends on your level of use and how you prefer to manage your payments. Check out our guide on how to use your mobile phone bill to save money.

A SIM-only plan means you pay for the data, calls and texts you make, but not the handset. It only takes a few minutes to find a cheaper deal and start saving. Mobiles 48's SIM-only Deals. Arch rival Sky has maintained its TV subscription numbers and is now more than twice Virgin's number. Vodafone has been trying to add new parts to its business in a piecemeal fashion, doing better in some segments than others.

Outside its core mobile network, its biggest recent investment has been its half share in Siro, the fibre network being built around the country with the ESB. Progress on this network has been steady, but substantially behind schedule.

Just half of the , premises that Siro expected to 'pass' make available for a connection by this point have made it. To be fair, they are not alone in refinancing their operation - Eir also went back to the markets for investment money earlier this year.

Vodafone's main strength remains its mobile network, which is consistently ranked as the strongest in the country in terms of signal quality and speed. This is down to a decade of investment in physical network building and upgrades.

It has been unimpeded by dragging factors such as the integration of an underpar network the old O2 network subsumed by Three or rival corporate priorities, such as Eir's previous focus on buyouts and financial rescue. An additional aid to controlling output may be that it only has one tiny 'virtual' operator Post Mobile piggybacking on its network. Because of this, Vodafone has retained its position as the biggest operator in the country, especially with post-paid high-spending customers such as business users.

This is despite Vodafone generally charging more than rivals for access to its network, particularly in relation to data. At present, it is the only operator to offer 5G services in Ireland, even though this is only in a handful of streets in five Irish cities. It has adopted something very different to a premium strategy for its home broadband and telephone services, offering customers slightly cheaper deals than main rivals because it is piggybacking on Eir's copper network.

As a result, it has remained steady at number three in the home services market, behind Eir and Virgin, although this is a lower-margin business for the company. While some of its energy has gone into repositioning its mobile network for new business functions, such as the internet of things, the network's fledgling TV business could be described as struggling. It lags far behind closest rival Eir and light years behind either Virgin or Sky.

Keep an eye on: How it develops its 5G network; also, lingering merger rumours with Virgin. Three hasn't invested in different platforms in the same way as its major rivals Eir, Vodafone and Virgin. Since then, it has been occupied with the huge, expensive task of merging that old, creaking O2 mobile network into its own more modern one. In telecoms terms, this is a little bit like West Germany subsuming East Germany. It was always going to take time, money and involve some pain along the way.

The O2 acquisition put the company into second place in Ireland and gave it a much-needed chunk of bill-paying customers, especially in older, less churnable demographics. The company has sweated its network assets more than any rivals. It hosts four of the six 'virtual' operators on its network, including the independent powerhouse Tesco Mobile. Three's biggest challenge is the absence of any substantial fixed-line infrastructure, the only Irish operator in this position.

It is generally more reliant on other companies' backhaul services to support its wireless operations, potentially sucking some extra margin away. It has recently begun to aggressively offer wireless broadband alternatives to fixed line services, betting that the continued absence of high-quality fibre in most of the country gives it a window to build up a home telecoms service business which it can augment when it rolls out its 5G network.

However, it risks being late to the party on 5G. Earlier this month, company executives told this newspaper that it had not yet finalised a 5G contract with an equipment supplier. This is despite its main rival, Vodafone, having already launched its first 5G sites in cities around the country. Three's pledge to have a 5G network launched by the end of now looks questionable, although it may yet do so if it can accelerate its plans.