Vodafone broadband vs EE broadband

Vodafone offer some of the UK's cheapest broadband prices, while also offering options for a more premium service, including a WiFi 6E router upgrade and speeds up to 2.2Gbps.

EE, owned by BT Group, have similar upgrade options to Vodafone, yet, they cost noticeably more per month.

Overall, Vodafone beat EE for offering both standard and premium broadband options for less, while also providing wider availability for full fibre.

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At a glance: Vodafone vs EE

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Price

Winner: Vodafone broadband is cheaper than EE broadband across all speed tiers, and including when upgraded extras are added.

Vodafone broadband starts at just £24.50 per month for a full fibre connection, plus Vodafone pay monthly mobile customers can save an extra £2 per month on that price.

EE broadband is noticeably more expensive however, with prices starting at £30.99 for full fibre broadband, nearly £6 more per month than Vodafone's equivalent plan.

Both providers also offer faster broadband deals, as well as optional extras including a router upgrade, WiFi boosters and 4G back-up devices. All of these options are cheaper with Vodafone broadband than they are with EE broadband, which we look at more below in the 'packages' section.

One exception to this, is the Full Fibre 1.6 plan, which is 1 penny cheaper with EE, than with Vodafone, except for where customers also have Vodafone mobile, where they'll save £4 per month on the below price:

For households who want to maintain a home phone line, Vodafone include a digital phone line at no extra cost, while customers will have to pay £5 extra per month with EE broadband.

In addition, for those who use the phone for calls, Vodafone's calling charges are cheaper than with EE, and their unlimited anytime call plan is just £8 per month, compared to a somewhat dearer £18 per month with EE.

Lastly, annual price rises are the same with both providers raising prices mid-contract by £3 per month in March or April of each year.

Overall, Vodafone easily beat EE for broadband prices, including where equivalent premium services and home phone are added.

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Broadband packages

Winner: Vodafone include a home phone line as standard, match the majority of EE's premium service extras for a cheaper price, and offer greater full fibre availability.

Vodafone and EE both offer standard broadband plans with WiFi 6 routers, as well as premium options with an upgraded router, WiFi boosters and automatic 4G back-up device, yet, Vodafone do it for less.

All standard Vodafone home broadband plans come with the WiFi 6 enabled Power Hub and a home phone line at no extra cost. Customers can also choose to upgrade to:

• Super WiFi: with up to three WiFi 6 boosters to extend coverage
• Pro II: WiFi 6E Ultra Hub, up to three WiFi 6E boosters, and 4G back-up
• Xtra: Apple TV 4K box, Apple TV+ subscription, and unlimited anytime calls

Vodafone Xtra can be combined with Super WiFi, Pro II or taken with a standard plan.

EE home broadband offers similar upgrade options, and while they cost a similar amount to Vodafone's prices, Vodafone remain cheaper overall.

With EE broadband customers can add any of the following add-on services to any broadband plan:

• Smart WiFi Plus: WiFi 6 booster to extend coverage
• Smart Hub Pro & Smart WiFi Pro: WiFi 7 router upgrade and WiFi 7 booster
• Smart Hybrid Connect: 4G mobile broadband back-up device
• WiFi Enhancer: boost connection speeds on particular apps, like Zoom, Teams, or when gaming
• EE Cyber Security: anti-virus software powered by Norton for up to 15 devices

While the last two options aren't available with Vodafone, customers could access a Norton anti-virus solution directly for a similar price.

EE Smart WiFi Plus and Vodafone Super WiFi are equivalent add-ons, which cost £7 per month each, although Vodafone standard broadband prices are £3 to £7/mth cheaper to begin with.

EE Smart Hub Pro, Smart WiFi Pro and Smart Hybrid Connect are much like Vodafone's Pro II packages, yet, Vodafone's option costs around £10 more per month, while with EE it would cost an extra £17 per month for both add-ons.

Side-by-side then, here are the starting prices of Vodafone and EE full fibre broadband:

Households living in CityFibre enabled areas will be able to get Vodafone full fibre broadband, but will only be able to get EE full fibre broadband if Openreach FTTP has also passed them.

For CityFibre residents, they'll actually be able to access even cheaper prices with Vodafone, along with symmetrical upload speeds, with pricing for their standard deals costing:

Households who've yet to be passed by either Openreach FTTP or CityFibre, will be able to access a superfast part fibre from either Vodafone or EE at the below prices:

Both providers have 24-month minimum term contracts, although EE also offer a 12-month option, but this costs an extra £5 per month. Setup with Vodafone is free, while EE currently charge £11.99 on full fibre plans.

Overall, Vodafone are cheaper than EE home broadband and remain so, even when premium features and services are added. In addition, Vodafone gets even cheaper when customers also have Vodafone mobile, while EE customers save on a mobile plan rather than seeing the broadband price reduce.

Read more about Vodafone broadband.

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Broadband speed

Winner: Vodafone broadband offers a faster top speed of 2.2Gbps than EE, who top out at 1.6Gbps, and Vodafone also offer symmetrical upload speeds in CityFibre locations.

Vodafone and EE are both retail broadband providers for the Openreach wholesale network of both part fibre and full fibre connections.

Yet, Vodafone also work with CityFibre, to bring full fibre broadband to 3.8 million more homes across the UK, and where this network is available, speeds are faster too, with symmetrical uploads across all plans, and multi-gigabit options of up to 2.2Gbps.

EE offer the following broadband speeds:

Vodafone offer the following broadband speeds in Openreach network areas:

While in CityFibre enabled areas, Vodafone customers will be able to choose from these broadband speeds instead:

Where both CityFibre and Openreach are available, Vodafone will sign customers up to CityFibre, where prices are cheaper and speeds are faster.

Both Vodafone and EE offer Openreach's fastest 1.6Gbps package option for a similar price, while Vodafone also offer a 1.8Gb - 2.2Gb symmetrical package with CityFibre, making them the faster overall option depending upon location.

Advertised average download speeds, like those in the tables above, must be received by at least 50% of a broadband provider's customers during the peak hours of 8pm to 10pm when the network is busiest. As such, they're a reliable measurement of how fast a connection is likely to be.

However, Vodafone and EE are both signatories of Ofcom's voluntary code of practice on broadband speeds, which means they both provide customers with a minimum guaranteed download speed when they sign up.

This minimum speed is the slowest speed a customer should receive before they're entitled to cancel their contract and leave the provider penalty free. Slow speeds must be experienced for at least 3 consecutive days and providers are allowed 30 days to try and resolve any problems.

We looked at one location with Openreach FTTP availability and were given these minimum download speeds with Vodafone and EE:

So, while Vodafone offer faster broadband speeds than EE in CityFibre enabled areas, EE offer fastest minimum guaranteed download speeds than Vodafone does for customers living in areas only passed by Openreach FTTP.

Overall, in some areas, Vodafone will be the easy choice for broadband speed over EE, while in Openreach areas customers may be more reassured by EE's faster guarantees.

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Router

Winner: It's a tie. Both Vodafone and EE offer options to upgrade the router, while EE offers WiFi 7 compatibility, few devices are yet to support this protocol.

EE provide all customers with the EE Smart Hub Plus, it supports WiFi 6 and has seven internal antennae, with options for mesh support and up to four 1Gb LAN connections.

Similarly, Vodafone also now provide all broadband customers with the Power Hub router, it also supports WiFi 6, intelligent mesh, and has four 1Gb Ethernet LAN ports.

Here's how they look side-by-side:

It's possible EE slightly take the lead here, as they offer an additional antenna on the 5GHz channel, which could boost signal strength slightly. However, overall, EE's Smart Hub Plus and Vodafone's Power Hub are pretty similar devices.

For customers wanting the latest devices they can upgrade with both Vodafone and EE, to the Ultra Hub and Smart Hub Pro respectively.

EE's Smart Hub Pro is arguably better as it supports the very latest WiFi 7 protocol, although it should be said, only connecting devices that also support WiFi 7 will benefit from any boost in speed, which won't be many as it was only released in 2024.

Vodafone's Ultra Hub supports WiFi 6E, it adds an additional 6GHz channel to provide faster, less-contended, connections over a new frequency. Again, like WiFi 7 only devices that support WiFi 6E will benefit, but this was 2021 - so more devices will be compatible.

Here are the specifications of each side-by-side:

To get EE's latest Smart Hub Pro router customers will have to upgrade at a cost of £10 per month, while Vodafone customers will need to take the Pro II plan, which also costs £10 extra per month, although Pro II also bundles a 4G back-up, which otherwise costs another £7 per month with EE.

So, there are pros and cons to each, but we think the lack of compatibility available so far for WiFi 7 doesn't really make the extra cost of EE broadband worth it.

For example, Apple iPhone 16 series smartphones, Google Pixel 8, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, all support WiFi 7, while previous models will be limited to connecting over WiFi 6 or even 5.

None of Apple's latest Macs support WiFi 7 yet, and the only games console that does is the Sony PS5 Pro. Sky Stream supports WiFi 6, while Virgin Stream only connects over WiFi 5.

Overall, while we've drawn a tie in this category, Vodafone's router upgrade costs less and also bundles an automatic mobile broadband back-up system too.

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Customer service

Winner: EE has a better customer record than Vodafone does, however even their complaints figures have been rising recently.

In Ofcom's latest quarterly complaints report, published in November 2024, EE received 14 complaints per 100,000 customers, while Vodafone only received 12.

While both were higher than the industry average of 10 for the Q2 2024 quarter, EE also received the most landline complaints of any provider, gathering 15 complaints per 100,000 customers, compared to just 3 complaints for Vodafone.

When we look at complaint levels over time, we can see that EE's complaint records have been steadily growing since mid to late 2023 from an otherwise enviable track record, while Vodafone has more consistently high levels of complaints over time.

Other customer service metrics, like Ofcom's research into customer satisfaction, also shows EE outperforming Vodafone.

EE have higher levels of customer satisfaction overall than Vodafone does, while Vodafone has slightly more satisfaction with the speed of their service.

EE seems to handle complaints better than Vodafone, and has less customers with a reason to complain. EE also answer the phone quicker than Vodafone does.

We also know EE only use UK-based call centres, while Vodafone do use some overseas call centres, despite, having bought some jobs back to the UK in recent years.

Overall, EE have a better customer service track record than Vodafone for fixed line home broadband, although the recent spike in their complaint levels is worth keeping an eye on.

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Verdict: Vodafone broadband or EE broadband?

Overall winner: Vodafone offer the same choice of service extras with their broadband, while doing so for a cheaper price than EE does.

Vodafone and EE are fairly comparable providers, with both offering standard plans as well as more premium service extras that can be customised and added to each broadband speed tier.

Both providers offer a router upgrade, WiFi boosters and an automatic 4G back-up device that works with their respective networks. Customers can also benefit from discounts for taking both broadband and mobile services from the companies.

However, Vodafone manage to keep their prices substantially lower than EE does, which can make EE look a bit overpriced.

Customers also get a digital home phone line included at no extra cost with Vodafone, with cheaper options for anytime calls at just £8 per month too. EE however, charge an extra £5 just for a home phone, while anytime calls cost an eye-watering £18 per month.

Overall, Vodafone seem a clear winner over EE, they offer a similar level of premium options but at a cheaper cost, whilst also being one the UK's cheapest providers for standard plans too.

Compare broadband deals side-by-side here.