EE broadband vs TalkTalk broadband

TalkTalk offer a range of broadband deals with premium service extras including WiFi boosters, advanced parental controls, home phone and a smart TV box.

EE is surprisingly similar, also aiming to provide a more premium service with a range of extras from anti-virus software to the latest WiFi 7 router.

Overall, while close, we'd pick TalkTalk, their prices are usually cheaper than EE and the eero router devices may suit more homes with a built-in smart hub and free booster for gigabit customers.

At a glance: EE vs TalkTalk

Best deals

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Full Fibre 150	152Mb average	£28	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P

Price

Winner: TalkTalk broadband is cheaper than EE broadband, especially on entry-level deals.

TalkTalk broadband currently starts at £28 per month, and this includes both part fibre and their Full Fibre 150 plan. In comparison, EE's equivalent entry-level deals are currently priced just above at £29.99, although prices are usually higher than this.

Households who want to keep a home phone line will also pay more with EE, with digital voice costing an extra £5 per month, while TalkTalk only charge £2 per month on full fibre plans.

Here's how their entry-level full fibre plans look side-by-side:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Full Fibre 150	152Mb average	£28	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P
	Full Fibre 150 Essentials	149Mb average	£29.99	Free	24 months

Those wanting to compare TalkTalk against EE for faster broadband speeds, will currently find EE one penny cheaper than TalkTalk, but they're currently offering reduced prices and are normally more expensive.

As an example, here are the two Full Fibre 500 plans next to each other:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
Go	Full Fibre 500	525Mb average	£35	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P
	Full Fibre 500 Essentials	500Mb average	£34.99	Free	24 months

In terms of annual price rises, both TalkTalk and EE increase broadband prices by £3 per month in March or April of each year, so prices will remain similar over the length of a contract.

Calling plans are cheaper with TalkTalk than EE, with unlimited UK anytime calls costing from just £12 per month, compared to £18 per month with EE.

Lastly, both TalkTalk and EE offer additional services as well as digital voice. Customers can also add a TV plan with both providers, as well as access a whole home WiFi guarantee. Although exactly what's offered does vary and we'll look into this more below.

Overall, TalkTalk are cheaper than EE for entry-level broadband deals, although current offers put EE ahead on faster plans but only by one penny.

Broadband packages

Winner: It's a tie. TalkTalk and EE offer a similar level of premium features to add to their broadband packages, although TalkTalk may be cheaper when adding home phone.

TalkTalk full fibre broadband plans come with either the eero 6 or eero Pro 6 router. Both devices support WiFi 6, WPA3 security and mesh. TalkTalk customers also benefit however, from a free subscription to eero secure which provides protection against viruses and malware as well as advanced level parental controls.

All customers can access a whole home WiFi guarantee with boosters to extend coverage around the home, as well as an optional home phone service with unlimited anytime calls from just £12 per month.

In comparison, EE customers are also provided with a WiFi 6 router, and have access to upgrades including a WiFi guarantee and home phone service, although call plans are more expensive.

This is how TalkTalk and EE's full fibre broadband plans look side-by-side:

	Package	Broadband	Monthly price	Upfront price	Contract term
	Full Fibre 150	152Mb average	£28	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P
	Full Fibre 150 Essentials	149Mb average	£29.99	Free	24 months
	Full Fibre 500	525Mb average	£35	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P
	Full Fibre 500 Essentials	500Mb average	£34.99	Free	24 months
	Full Fibre 900	944Mb average	£45	Free	18 months
	Offer: Free setup and P&P
	Full Fibre 900 Essentials	900Mb average	£44.99	Free	24 months

While TalkTalk Full Fibre 900 comes with their Total WiFi add-on included, which provides a second eero Pro 6 router, other customers have to pay £8 per month extra.

EE's Smart WiFi Plus service, which offers a similar WiFi guarantee using additional mesh boosters, costs £7 per month to add to any of their broadband plans. Although with EE, this is only included for free with their most expensive 'Busiest Home Bundle', which costs just shy of £65 per month.

Other upgrade options include TalkTalk's SuperSafe and EE's Cyber Security, which both offer anti-virus software on up to 10 devices (15 in EE's case) for £6 and £5 per month respectively.

One area where TalkTalk is definitively cheaper than EE is with their digital voice home phone service. EE charge £5 extra for a home phone line, while TalkTalk only charge £2.

UK anytime calls are just £14 per month with TalkTalk (including the line charge), while EE charge £18 per month, which also makes TalkTalk the cheaper option.

Overall, TalkTalk and EE both offer similar broadband plans and add-ons, with both covering the bases of anti-virus, parental controls, WiFi boosters, home phone and TV fairly well. Pricing is fairly similar too, although TalkTalk usually come in cheaper.

Broadband speed

Winner: EE offer a faster 1.6Gbps plan, although TalkTalk has wider availability for its full fibre broadband deals and offers faster minimum speed guarantees.

TalkTalk offer full fibre broadband over both the Openreach and CityFibre FTTP networks, which cover a total of around 19.8 million premises together. In contrast, EE only uses the Openreach network, so availability is fewer at just 16 million premises.

TalkTalk's top broadband speed is 944Mbps at peak times, with asymmetrical upload speeds of 110Mbps.

EE also offer a gigabit broadband plan, although average speeds are slightly slower at 900Mbps down and 110Mbps up.

TalkTalk misses out on offering a multi-gigabit plan though, which EE does, with average speeds of 1.6Gbps down and 115Mbps up, although the plan costs a pricey £65 per month.

EE offer the following broadband speeds:

While TalkTalk offer these broadband speeds in both Openreach and CityFibre enabled areas:

While the Openreach FTTP network is currently limited to offering asymmetrical (slower) upload speeds, another area TalkTalk misses out on is symmetrical uploads in CityFibre areas, which are available (and sold by Vodafone), but TalkTalk has chosen to keep plans identical across Openreach and CityFibre areas.

EE also isn't the only provider to offer Openreach's 1.6Gb plan, with the connection also available with Vodafone, as well as up to 2.2Gb in CityFibre areas.

EE and TalkTalk are both signatories of Ofcom's voluntary code on broadband speeds, which requests providers give customers a minimum guaranteed download speed when they sign up.

This minimum guaranteed download speed provides an absolute minimum speed that should the service drop below the customer is given the right to exit their contract penalty free.

We looked at a postcode area with Openreach FTTP availability to compare EE and TalkTalk on this metric, and were given the following minimum speed guarantees for each of their full fibre plans:

In sum, if services fall below the minimum guaranteed download speed at the router for 3 days in a row, and the provider is unable to resolve the issue, the customers is free to exit their contract early should they wish.

So, it's interesting then that TalkTalk offer both faster average download speeds and a faster minimum speed guarantee compared to EE.

Overall, while EE offer the fastest deal, TalkTalk's plans are actually faster on average and guarantee faster speeds on a like-for-like basis compared to EE.

Router

Winner: While EE offer decent equipment, TalkTalk provide a better eero device on faster plans, with gigabit customers getting two devices included as standard.

EE does provide the new Smart Hub Plus on all broadband plans, which supports dual-band WiFi 6, WPA3 encryption, and of course mesh for their WiFi guarantee service.

While TalkTalk Full Fibre 150 comes with a comparable eero 6, those who take Full Fibre 500 and above are provided with a tri-band WiFi 6 router, the eero Pro 6, and Full Fibre 900 customers get two devices, so the WiFi guarantee is included for free.

In addition, while EE do offer a router upgrade add-on, to the WiFi 7 enabled Smart Hub Pro, very few devices support WiFi 7 so far, having only been released in 2024, and so for now at least, the Smart Hub Pro is rather style over substance, with few customers likely to benefit.

Here's how the included routers look side-by-side:

The Amazon eero devices also host a built-in zigbee smart home hub, so connecting smart devices via the router should be seamless, and customers can also benefit from Alexa voice control.

The upgrade to EE's Smart Hub Pro costs an extra £10 per month, and while it is a more powerful device, so few devices will also support WiFi 7 we really can't see it being worthwhile just yet.

Overall, while EE offer a WiFi 7 router upgrade, TalkTalk's included devices offer better features and gigabit customers get two devices at no extra cost.

Customer Service

Winner: It's a tie. TalkTalk doesn't have the best track record, but they're actually receiving less complaints than EE in recent reports.

Ofcom's latest quarterly complaints figures for the period Q2 2024 showed TalkTalk received just 10 complaints per 100,000 customers, while EE received 14.

The previous Q1 2024 report showed a similar trend with TalkTalk receiving 11 complaints, while EE had 14 complaints per 100,000 customers.

This is the first time in a long time however, that TalkTalk and EE have swapped places in Ofcom's reports, with EE previously performing much better with fewer complaints than the industry average, while TalkTalk used to gather more.

We've seen a steady improvement for TalkTalk since early 2023 however, so it could be a good sign their customer service is performing better and leaving more satisfied customers.

Looking at older research, last published in May 2023, Ofcom's Comparing Service Quality report put EE ahead of TalkTalk for customer satisfaction:

While this research does show TalkTalk with fewer satisfied customers than EE, the research was carried out throughout 2022, and so these metrics may have improved since.

However, EE has noticeably more satisfied customers and fewer customers with a reason to complain than TalkTalk does. EE also seems to handle complaints better, with more resolved on first contact and more customers satisfied with the way their complaint was handled.

We also know EE only use UK-based call centres, while TalkTalk still outsource most of their customer adviser roles to South Africa and the Philippines.

Overall, while recent complaints have increased for EE, we'd pick them over TalkTalk for customer service due to a better past track record, although neither are looking particularly shiny in this area.

Verdict: EE or TalkTalk for broadband?

Overall winner: TalkTalk offer a good range of service extras, with arguably better routers and wider full fibre availability, as well as slightly cheaper prices, than EE does.

EE and TalkTalk are actually fairly similar providers, with both striving to offer a more premium service with a range of extra add-ons for customers to choose from.

Both providers also use good routers and customers can easily access WiFi boosters if they need them, as well as parental control tools and anti-virus software.

It's also possible to get a smart TV box and home phone line from both EE and TalkTalk, so, overall, there's actually not an easy line to draw between them.

TalkTalk are marginally cheaper than EE, and we also like that they include an extra eero Pro 6 for gigabit customers.

TalkTalk also beat EE in terms of full fibre availability, with TalkTalk now stretching to 19.8 million premises, while EE is more heavily tied to just using Openreach who only pass 16 million premises so far, and may be unlikely to want to overlap CityFibre too much as well.

Overall, it's a close tie between TalkTalk and EE with both providers performing similarly and offering equivalent services. But if we had to pick, we'd go with TalkTalk, their eero router offering is just that bit more attractive, at least until WiFi 7 takes off.