Data Throttled Abroad

[jsmyth16]

Hi all, first post here. Took out a vodafone contract around 2 months ago to be able to get proper, unrestricted 4G in France this summer. Was previously with Three and 3G roaming & throttling was awful, so I switched. 

I've arrived in France via Eurotunnel, and a group of 5 of us have driven right down to the south of France. 2 of us are on vodafone, 2 on giffgaff, and 1 on BT mobile. The problem is, the 2 vodafone phones are getting awful speeds, on both 3G and 4G, while all other phones work perfectly.

Friends on giffgaff can easily load pages, maps and Spotify easily, all on 3G. Friend on BT Mobile gets 4G and is getting 40+ Mbps. But myself & the other vodafone phone, have not once seen a speed above 0.2 Mbps.

I have tried SFR, Bouygues and Orange, all are the same. The other phones have tried all networks too, and they all work fine.

Vodafones website literally says "We never throttle abroad, so you'll enjoy full speed roaming". This is clearly not the case? I have a Global Roaming plan, and 20GB of data. Could anybody help me?

As an example, I've just taken my vodafone phone and friends BT phone and put them beside each other. Both are connected to exactly the same Cell ID, and using 2600MHz 4G on Orange F. Speed test on BT gives 45Mbps consistently, and loads everything flawlessly. Speedtest on vodafone, gives 0.15 Mbps, and things like Maps, Facebook etc take a few minutes to load. What is going on? :smileysad: I'm going to have to buy a local SIM at this rate, I'm so disappointed in vodafone. 

[Tash]

@jsmyth16 @planetf1 @hammy434 @rasseru16 @chgokev @jayiwa

Hi all,

Thanks for raising this to us. This has now been investigated and we've received an update today.

The cause has been identified and this should now be resolved.

Should you be continuing to experience any further issues, please let us know.

[jsmyth16]

Thanks Natasha, I can confirm 4G is indeed back up to proper speeds now! Just got 70 Mbps on Orange F.  Great to see 😁

[chgokev]

It's not quite working in Germany yet. Do you know how long it should take ? 

[Alex]

@chgokev If it's still not working for yourself, please contact us using the information in the private message I've sent - we can then take a little look into this further for you. :smileyhappy:

[amh13]

Throttling seems to be back. These are my "4G" speeds today in Italy, compared to what I was getting a few days ago in EXACTLY the same place. 

[Tash]

@amh13 I've responded to your post in a different thread. 

[JOHN-1970]

Hi Natasha. 

I am currently in France roaming on SFR's 4G network. I am using Huawei 's E5573 with Vodafone 50Gb data 30 days contracts. With full bars on 4G (I believe on an 800Mhz band) my data throughout is waving between 1.5 to 4.8Mbps DL and 6-17Mbps UL using speedtest. At my location using the same device E5573 combined with a local SIM card the data throughput reaches a reliable 17Mbps DL and roughtly the same UL. Is there something you can do on your side so that I can use the network resource that is available or is this a matter of traffic shaping and thereafter governed by Vodafone policies?

In advance thank you for your help

John 

[JOHN-1970]

Hi Natasha. 

I am currently roaming in France using Vodafone 50Gb 30 days contract with Huawei's E5573. With full bars on 4G on the SFR or Bouygues network by DL throughput varies between 1.5Mbps <> 4.8Mbps whilst UL reaches >15Mbps.

I have switched my SIM with a local SFR 4G (for testing purposes). In this configuration where Vodafone SIM is replaced with a SFR SIM, the DL throughput varies between 14Mbps <> 17Mbps. Is there something that can be done so that my data throughput on my Vodafone SIM can utilise the network resource that is avaiable ?

In advance, thank you for your help

John

[PedroC1999]

I was in France last week and I was getting speeds over 100mbps quite regularly on SFR and Bouygues roaming using my Vodafone UK SIM only contract. 

[JOHN-1970]

Thanks for the data point PedroC; this helps.