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. 

[amh13]

Local Vodafone SIM is getting 110mbits now.

Already my Vodafone UK SIM is a getting a fraction of that speed and by around 6 o'clock this evening I will be getting maximum 2-3 mbits (if I'm really lucky) or no connection whatsoever. 

To be completely honest, I don't care so much if I get 30 or 100mbits. I'm on holiday, I'm not streaming or anything, but I would like to have a connection at least decent enough to handle Facebook and Google maps for example. And at the moment I can't even use these, even messenger sometimes doesn't work when the data connection is completely dead. 

[baz03]

yep here we go again 14.30 in France .025 Mbps download total joke Vodafone need to listen and sort this...my daughters still getting over 7 Mbps with her 3 network on either sfr or orange  and i was trying to tell her to swap to voda because the roaming data was so good...think its time for me to swap to 3 lol ...

I reckon an email to Ofcom is on its way they advertise no throttling and obviously are doing so i will definitely be asking for my data charges to be refunded as they are completely un fit for purpose. Just really fed up that ive got another 3 weeks of this looks like my daughters tethering on 3 is my only option.

[JOHN-1970]

Hi Baz. 

I am not sure an email to Ofcom will make much difference. Notwithstanding the aforementioned it could be suggested that Vodafone have mislead its customers with regards to its Roaming offe. Contrary to the much advertised claim of Best Network for roaming we have compiled material evidence here suggesting at least that other UK operators might be offering a much better quality of service to their roaming customers; at least in our experience.

Alex is looking into our situation; let's give him and the Vodafone support team the opportunity to investigate diligently our issue and to offer a workeable solution.

[baz03]

Hi John, yeah I will be patient for a day or two but luckily not tied in too long as with some people. 

must laugh tried logging in to my Vodafone and the connection was that bad I had a message saying I wasn't connected to the internet.

cheers Brian

[amh13]

Heavily throttled in Switzerland as well. I noticed that only download speeds are limited, I'm getting full upload speeds both in Italy and Switzerland at all hours. 

I did this speedtest with full signal on Swisscom right in front of the phone mast. As you can see, I'm getting almost 50mbits in upload but barely 10 in download

[Swifty00]

So. Thought it was me going crazy during two trips to the Netherlands during July. Same happening now and I'm in Cyprus! Play the game Vodafone! Previously on 3£ a day it's been fantastic, so "not throttling" my ##~##!

That will be another two contracts added to the scrap pile if they don't sort this very quickly! 

[amh13]

The issue still hasn't been resolved, currently i'm getting 2mbits. I'm very disappointed with Vodafone's service, especially as the "unbeatable 4g abroad" is supposed to be their strong point and one of the reasons that i brought my number in from 3

[baz03]

Yeh it's a total disgrace from a company like this I was talking to customer services today for 30 mins and more they told me they have no control over the partners speed i.e. Orange F and  as long as I had an internet connection that's all they had to gaurentee tried telling me it was my location haha my daughters with 3 linked to Orange F sat next to me with full speed internet. There answer to that was 3 must have a better deal with the partner to provide a faster speed. I canceled my Voda dongle there and then. But stuck with the crap service on two other contracts for a few more months. Surely they are breeching some kind of EU law by reducing speeds?? I am definitely going to contact offcom and watchdog see if they are at all interested just mainly to let people know and don't get caught out like we have. 4G my backside dial up was never this bad lol 

[JOHN-1970]

Hi all. 

Tonight at 22:46 local time, 4G SFR and 4G Bouygues with a radio signal strength of 4 to 5 bars, my throughput achieves a 0.6Mbps on DL. At this level of DL speed the internet is hardly useable. This level of service is comparable to GPRS and would certainly not adhere to the level of perform one should expect from a 4G data Service. I would agree with Brian a formal complain to Vodafone and Ofcom is appropriate. We should also reach out to the ASA to seek consumer protection on the basis that Vodafone's advertising is misleading consumers to purchase a product  i..e Vodafone 4G service which is later not delivered albeit charged in full. 

[Jenny]

 @JOHN-1970 and @baz03 - So we can look into this further, I’ve sent you both a private message with instructions on how to get in touch.

@amh13 – I know you’ve had problems completing the form previously, so I’ve sent you a private message with instructions on an alternative way to email us.