It depends where you are and wha time of day you are online. There is a lot of info in the midband forum over on boards.ie
Most of the providers offer a free 7 day trial so try that to see whats best. Meteor are testing their sytem at the moment.
I just bought 3 last week on pay as you go. Up to tonight the service wasnt bad better than O2 (when signal completely failed afer 3 mths) but not as good as Vodaphone -at least not in east Meath.
The big problem I have with 3 -apart from having no signal tonght for some reason-is the awkward nature of topping -up online. I 'd hate to be old & possibly not used to computers -quite an ordeal ending with a phone call to INDIA no les to get service advice.
THe other major problem is that I cant get GPRS at all. When 3G signal is unavailable there is an option to use GPRS. But when you select this slower option all you get is a message that you cannot connect with 3 -& the option to redial but still nothing happens.
Its ironic that as soon as I top up with 25€ (actually 30 as the girl in a 3 shop says you have to purchase 30 credit & the extra 5 is carried over-making sense!?).
How does the pay as you go work? As in you top up €25 (€30 LOL!) and how do you get charged then? Is it per meg or a fixed rate per daily usage?
I just moved from Vodafone to O2 as the €30/month was a bit steep with Vodafone. O2 seems OK so far, a bit slower at peak times it appears but I have seen 3 failing to load Google at midnight on a Saturday as well so....