For a single site cabin, Three Business 5G Broadband is the cheapest way online at £15.00 a month ex VAT, router and unlimited data bundled in. Cradlepoint and Peplink cost far more upfront, from £939 to £2,500, but you own the hardware, can choose any network, and can reuse it on the next job. Pick Cradlepoint or Peplink when reliability across several sites matters; pick Three when it is one cabin, one job, and cost decides.
Key pointers
- Check Three's live signal at your actual postcode with Ofcom's mobile coverage checker before you order. Three's own hub has no fallback network if the signal is marginal.
- Three Business 5G Broadband is £15.00 a month ex VAT for the first year on a 24-month plan, rising to £16.60 from April 2027 and £18.20 from April 2028, with the router included and no upfront cost.
- The Peplink MAX BR1 Pro 5G costs £939.00 ex VAT (£1,126.80 inc VAT) with a year of PrimeCare cloud management bundled, and you still need to buy a business data SIM separately.
- The Cradlepoint E3000-5GB costs from £2,496.98 inc VAT with a year of NetCloud bundled. It is a branch router for a fixed cabin, not the vehicle-rated R1900, which is a different product.
- If the site has CCTV, an alarm panel or anything a control room must reach remotely, ask about a static/fixed public IP SIM before you order: a standard consumer data SIM sits behind carrier-grade NAT and blocks inbound access.
- Cradlepoint and Peplink hardware is reusable on your next site; a Three Business Broadband contract is tied to the account, not the job, and runs for 12 or 24 months regardless of how long the build lasts.
- Budget for a separate UK business data SIM on top of the Cradlepoint or Peplink hardware price. Neither vendor sells data itself.
What a Site Office Actually Needs
A construction site office usually has no landline, no fixed IP address, and a life expectancy of a few weeks to a couple of years. The connection has to arrive before the ground floor slab is poured, survive a compound that gets rewired every fortnight as cabins move, and support email, cloud drawings, timesheets and video calls for a handful of people. None of that requires a permanent leased line, which is why every option in this comparison runs over 4G or 5G rather than fibre.
The three named options sit at different points on the buy-versus-rent spectrum. Cradlepoint and Peplink sell you a router: a piece of capital equipment with a cloud management subscription attached, into which you insert your own SIM. Three Business Broadband sells you a service: a router, unlimited data and a support contract bundled into one monthly charge, on Three's own network only. Three's own product page names the exact scenario in this brief directly: "In areas without fibre, Three Business Broadband delivers superfast 5G speeds with no need for a landline or engineer. Ideal for businesses in remote locations, temporary offices, or building sites" (source 1).
How Each Option Gets a Site Office Online
All three work the same way at a basic level: a 4G or 5G modem in the router talks to the nearest mast, the router shares that connection over Wi-Fi and Ethernet to the cabin's laptops, phones and any CCTV or access-control kit, and (for Cradlepoint and Peplink) a cloud dashboard lets someone off-site check the connection is up without a site visit.
The difference is what sits behind that modem. The Peplink MAX BR1 Pro 5G is a single-modem router built for exactly this kind of temporary, DC-powered deployment: it ships with a 12V 2A power supply, PoE input, and Peplink's InControl 2 cloud platform for remote monitoring, with SpeedFusion able to bond the cellular link to a second WAN path if one is added later. The Cradlepoint E3000-5GB is built the other way round: it is Cradlepoint's flagship branch router (source 4), with nine Gigabit Ethernet ports, PoE for cameras and access points, and a 2 Gbps firewall, designed to sit permanently in a rack or on a wall inside a building, with 5G as the primary or failover WAN link. It is genuinely a small-office router that happens to use cellular data, not a portable field unit.
That distinction matters because Cradlepoint's product range includes a router that actually is built for vehicles and rough conditions, the R1900, and it is easy to confuse the two when comparing prices. Cradlepoint's own site categorises the R1900 as "Mobile" and describes it as a "ruggedized 5G... appliance for vehicle deployments" (source 5), aimed at fleets and emergency services rather than a static cabin. A site manager comparing "Cradlepoint" against Peplink and Three should be pricing the E3000, not the R1900, unless the router is genuinely going in a vehicle.
Three's hub works differently again: it is a self-contained consumer-style unit with no separate management platform, no dual-SIM failover and no bonding. You plug it in, and Three's own network is the only path in or out.
Pricing and Cost Model
Three's business broadband charges are billed monthly per site and stated by Three as excluding VAT (source 2). Cradlepoint and Peplink hardware is a one-off purchase from a reseller, since neither manufacturer publishes a UK list price; both bundle the first year of their cloud platform into that purchase, after which the platform renews at a reseller quote rather than a fixed published rate.
| Option | Upfront hardware | Bundled platform | Ongoing platform cost | Data | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Three Business 5G Broadband | £0 | n/a | n/a | Unlimited UK data included | 24 months at £15.00 a month, or 12 months at around £20.00 a month, both ex VAT |
| Peplink MAX BR1 Pro 5G | £939.00 ex VAT / £1,126.80 inc VAT | 1 year PrimeCare | Reseller quote from year 2 | Separate business data SIM required | None on the hardware itself |
| Cradlepoint E3000-5GB | £2,496.98 inc VAT (about £2,080.82 ex VAT) | 1 year NetCloud | Reseller quote, 1/3/5-year terms | Separate business data SIM required | None on the hardware itself |
Assumptions: the Cradlepoint price above is a UK reseller list price (source 3) and the Peplink price is from The Tech Factory (source 7), a UK Platinum Peplink Partner, both checked live on 29 September 2026; neither Cradlepoint nor Peplink publishes a UK price directly, so figures will vary by reseller and by quantity. Both figures exclude the SIM data plan itself, which is a separate ongoing cost on top. Three's £15.00 a month covers the router and the data together, so it is not directly comparable to the hardware-only figures without adding a SIM cost to the other two.
Putting the router and first year of platform together against 12 months on Three's 24-month plan gives a rough sense of scale: £216.00 inc VAT for Three (£15.00 a month ex VAT, VAT-inclusive, times 12), against £1,126.80 inc VAT for the Peplink hardware alone, and £2,496.98 inc VAT for the Cradlepoint hardware alone, with a SIM still to add to either. For a single short job, that gap is hard for Cradlepoint or Peplink to close. It narrows fast on a multi-site contractor's second, third and tenth job, because the router itself is reusable and only the SIM needs replacing.
Cradlepoint, Peplink and Three Compared
| Criterion | Cradlepoint E3000-5GB | Peplink MAX BR1 Pro 5G | Three Business 5G Broadband |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Fixed branch office, indoor, mains power, 0°C to 50°C | Mobile and temporary sites, 12V/24V DC, PoE option | A single plug-in site cabin |
| Network resilience | Dual SIM slot; add a second modem via the MC400 expansion slot for dual-carrier failover | Single 5G modem; SpeedFusion can bond it to a second WAN once added | Single network (VodafoneThree) only, no failover |
| Management | Cradlepoint NetCloud cloud dashboard | Peplink InControl 2 cloud dashboard | None; consumer-style hub, no self-service dashboard |
| Who sets it up | Usually pre-configured by an IT reseller or MSP before it ships | An MSP, or a site manager comfortable inserting a SIM and setting an APN | Site manager; plug in and go, no engineer visit |
| Best fit | Multi-site contractors standardising kit across several branches or site offices, wanting firewall and PoE for cameras and access points on the same box | A single or temporary site needing rugged, DC-powered kit that will move to the next job | A single, short site wanting the lowest cost and fastest time to online, and accepting single-network risk |
| Weakest fit | A one-off small site that does not want branch-router money or a NetCloud subscription | A team with nobody to provision a cloud dashboard for one temporary router | Any site in a genuine VodafoneThree coverage gap, or one needing more than a year on a job with no exit flexibility |
None of the three is a universal winner. The Cradlepoint E3000 earns its price on a firewall, PoE budget and dual-SIM slot that a temporary-site router does not need for a single cabin, and it makes far more sense once a contractor is running several sites on the same NetCloud dashboard than it does for one job. The Peplink MAX BR1 Pro 5G sits in between: cheaper than the Cradlepoint, genuinely built for a temporary, DC-powered deployment (source 8), and reusable job after job, but it still asks the buyer to source a SIM and run a cloud platform for a single router. Three Business Broadband wins on cost and simplicity for exactly the case the brief describes: one office, one job, get online today, at £15.00 a month rising to £18.20 by April 2028, with nothing to configure and nothing to resell afterwards.
Coverage Is the Real Deciding Factor
Cost comparisons only matter if the router actually gets a usable signal. Historically, Three's own network covered less of the UK landmass than EE's or Vodafone's, particularly in rural and greenfield areas, which is exactly where new sites often sit. That changed structurally on 31 May 2025, when Vodafone UK and Three UK completed their merger to form VodafoneThree, a deal that commits the combined business to £11 billion of network investment over ten years partly aimed at closing those gaps (source 11). That investment is not complete everywhere yet, so the only reliable check is a site-specific one: run the postcode through Ofcom's independent mobile coverage checker before ordering (source 12), rather than relying on any operator's own coverage map. Cradlepoint and Peplink sidestep this risk by accepting SIMs from any UK network and supporting a second SIM or a second modem for failover; a Three Business Broadband hub only ever has Three's own signal to fall back on.
If the site has CCTV, an intercom, an alarm panel or anything a control room needs to reach from outside, ask whichever option you choose whether the SIM gets a fixed, routable public IP address. A standard consumer data SIM on any UK network sits behind carrier-grade NAT, meaning the router never gets its own public address and inbound connections, including remote camera viewing, are blocked by default; a fixed or static IP SIM removes that restriction (source 10). This applies equally to a SIM bought for a Cradlepoint or Peplink router and to a business broadband hub, so it is worth asking the question whichever option you choose.
Editorial Analysis
For the brief as written, a short, single-cabin job with a tight budget points towards Three Business 5G Broadband: it is the only option here that needs no separate data plan, no cloud dashboard and no capital outlay, and £15.00 a month is difficult to beat against £939 or £2,497 of hardware plus an ongoing SIM. The case for Cradlepoint or Peplink strengthens quickly as soon as the buyer is a contractor running several sites rather than one, because the hardware and the cloud platform amortise across jobs in a way a rolling Three contract does not, and because both accept a SIM from whichever network actually reaches that plot, rather than betting the whole connection on one operator. The honest middle ground is Peplink's MAX BR1 Pro 5G: cheaper than the Cradlepoint, purpose-built for a temporary DC-powered site rather than adapted from a permanent branch router, and worth it once a contractor values owning the hardware and choosing the network over the lowest possible monthly cost.
Sources
- Three Business, 5G Business Broadband product page - Three Business
- Three Business, homepage pricing - Three Business
- NetXL, Cradlepoint distributor page - NetXL
- Ericsson Cradlepoint, E3000 product page - Ericsson (Cradlepoint)
- Ericsson Cradlepoint, R1900 product page - Ericsson (Cradlepoint)
- Peplink, MAX BR1 Pro 5G product page - Peplink
- The Tech Factory, Peplink BR1 Pro 5G (HW3) listing - The Tech Factory
- The Tech Factory, Peplink Balance vs MAX explainer - The Tech Factory
- Drakos Systems, best routers for SIM cards and 5G internet - Drakos Systems
- GleeSIM, construction site broadband comparison - GleeSIM
- Vodafone, completion of the Vodafone and Three merger - Vodafone Group Plc
- Ofcom, mobile coverage checker - Ofcom
