Advice: Using Vodafone Mobile As A Dial Up Alternative

[Rufass]

Way back at the end of last summer I was seeking a solution for my folks' lack of broadband connection at their rural address, indeed they only had a 28kb dial up connection. Mobile broadband was suggested as an alternative and I spoke to several people at Vodafone who said that the coverage was marginal but that the service should work at least as fast as regular dial up and recommended I try it.

I signed up and took the dongle over to my folks' house and we tested it out and were pleased to find that it provided speeds closer to a regular dial up connection. It worked OK for a couple of weeks (unfortunately else I would have cancelled) and then I began to get reports that the service was unusable at times. When I went over to check it seemed that the speeds we had seen when we first tested it were only available at certain times and that at others it was much slower and that at peak times it was completely unusable. It was around this time that I entered into an ongoing debate with Vf about the service and they did eventually admit on one phone call that the issue was caused by contention with voice packets -- which take priority over data.

In short think very carefully about using the service as an alternative to dial up in areas where there is no broadband provision unless you're only going to be using it at off-peak times. Particularly as the mobile network is likely to be equally light on infrastructure. We found that between 4 and 7pm the service was unusable. For the same reason I would be dubious about using the service as a replacement for regular broadband, even in areas where there is good 3g coverage as the same issues with contention may well still apply.

If you are tempted to try the service out then make the most of the 14 day trial period and make you sure you try the service at different times of the day and different days of the week while you can still cancel.

I've just been looking at the usage of the service through the online billing tool (very good now it's working by the way Vf) and my folks were only able to use about 2% of their total allowance of data, they averaged about 67Mb a month. When you think that one page of the Guardian website is about a quarter of a meg then you can see that's not a lot of pages, let alone any windows or antivirus updates. I make it that the service was costing me about 25p a meg.

[Retired-Lee]

Hey Rufass,

I'm sorry to hear of your folks problems with our Mobile Broadband service. I can certainly understand you post and there are some excellent points you make.

If you could post your parents' postcode we'll, take a look at the local sites to see if there's anything wrong and may be able to request coverage enhancement.

Cheers,

LeeH
eForum Team

[Rufass]

Hi Lee,

They have stopped using the service now so no point requesting any enhancements on their behalf, though it might help me get a signal on my phone when I'm there! I just thought it might save trouble all round if people were more aware of the limitations of the service and what it is best suited to up front.

We use the very same service here at work for laptop users when they're on the move and they work fine for that purpose, it's a good service ... but ... if folks are being given the impression that it's a viable alternative to fixed dial up or broadband (as I was) without understanding the likely limitations then you are going to have more disgruntled customers -- which I suspect must be nearly as frustrating for you folks as it is for them. It is not clear anywhere that voice traffic gets priority (indeed it took me a lot of effort to finally confirm my suspicions on that score as no-one seemed willing to admit it) and that is something that is bound to cause issues if you're attempting to use the service somewhere that has capacity issues at certain times of the day. I think it's then somewhat disingenuous for vendors (I am sure it's not just Vf) to say "well, it's a mobile service", after all if mobile phones didn't work at all between 4 and 7pm or whatever I don't think that would be considered acceptable.

More responsible selling and better setting of expectations would surely result in more satisfied customers and less angry ones. It's very short-term thinking to sell a service to customers who will leave and never come back, even if you do get 18 months of money out of them.

N.B. You folks on this forum are the main difference between Vf and the other service providers and are the reason I stick with Vodafone despite some of the issues I've had.