Very poor connection speeds on Fibre (75Mbps)

[Dame1701]

I have posted twice on this forum about slow speeds with our 76Mbps service from Vodafone and twice the post has been deleted. On one occasion we linked to the post so your Twitter account could see the issues.

I hope this is a technical problem rather than a deliberate attempt to ignore our problem. I no longer have the origianl text but I hope one of your admins can dig it our and resurrect my post.

Many thanks,

Damien

[Dame1701]

Hi there,

We are receiving appalling speeds during the day and in the evenings on our recently activated (15 days ago) Vodafone broadband. It can be decent in the early hours for example at 4am, I recoded a speed of around 60Mbps but during the day it rarely exceeds 17Mbps and yesterday it went as low as 3Mbps (just 4% of what was promised) for a prolonged period where I experienced a dropout from an audio only radio station!

As an IT specialist I have done a lot of work to help the tech support team nail down the problem. I have run tests from several wired computers, using different ethernet sockets on both the PC and on the router. I have run tests from PC to PC on the local network where the speed is fine.

If I go into the router settings, I can see the connection speed to Vodafone is at a constant 74Mbps. I have stated multiple times that I believe the problem lies with the Vodafone network, specifically the route our house is taking through Vodafone to the rest of the Internet. This is apparent in the fact that the slowdown occurs at the times when it is likely a considerable number of people are using the service.

I have been through the online support script four times, each time as member of the support team has tested the line and (as expected) found no problem. They have advised me to change router ports, reboot the router etc. Nothing has made any difference. I eventually got our issue raised to the level 2 tech support team. 72 hours later they sent us a text to say that there was absolutely nothing wrong at their end and that my issue must be caused by the WIFI. How any expert team is able to miss the numerous times where I have clearly stated that we were having problems with wired connections is frankly beyond me, do they read their notes?

We were previously with Sky and we had a consistently fast connection speed at all times of the day. This would demonstrate that a) There is indeed no connection issue between our house and the ISP and b) This is an issue isolated to Vodafone.

We someone to deal with this issue quickly. If it is not possible for Vodafone to resolve this problem we will be forced to go elsewhere, probably back to Sky. We need a fast broadband connection to work effectively and as Vodafone has failed to get anywhere near the promised speeds - we would consider an inability to resolve this issue a breach of contract.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Thanks,

Damien

[TJ]

@Dame1701 We're very sorry; we encountered a slight technical issue with your posts, but the team have managed to get this resolved and we've added your original post to this thread. Apologies for any inconvenience this has caused.

I've sent you a private message with details on how to get in touch so the team can look into this for you, we'd hate to see you go and we'll try our best to get this resolved for you.

[Dame1701]

Hi TJ,

Many thanks for your response. In the end we decided to cancel our Vodafone contract and have taken up a similar package with BT. Since being with BT, the speeds have been consistently high throughout the day. I consistently record download speeds of around 68Mbps with it rising to 74Mbps on one occasion (our maximum sync speed).

I have several observations from my experience with Vodafone:

1. The technical support team could do with some additional training. I understand that they operate from a script, but to be forced to go through the same script each time you contact someone i.e. running line tests etc. is frustrating, especially when you inform them that these tests have been carried out already and point them to transcript of a previous communication.

2. In my experience, the second level support team appear to be next to useless. We were told by your first level support that our problem would be elevated and that we would hear a response within 72 hours. 72 hours later, the response we received was that there were no problems with the connectiona and that our issue was caused by a WIFI problem. This was despite me repeatidly telling your first level support that we are on a wired network. 

3. The issues with speed during certain times of the day were not due to a busy exchange but seem to be caused by extreme traffic shaping taking place on Vodafone's network. The fact that you are having to do this suggests that you have taken on too many customers without the neccessary infrastructure to support them. I was frustrated that the technical support team continually ignored my comments regarding this, particularly when I informed them that when we had been with Sky and BT in the past, we had no speed issues whatsoever and our speed problem only started when we installed the Vodafone service. The insistance on continually checking the line despite it operating well only the day before Vodafone arrived the fact we could all clearly see the sync speed was consistently high and that the line showed an excellent snr (the exchange is less than 20m away) amounted to a frustrating waste of time. 

My conclusion is that you need to review the quality of your network and ensure that you can provide the promised speeds most of the day (like your rivals). If you cannot do this, you will continue to receive complaints and you will continue to encounter customers abandoning your network. You also need to train your staff better and make it easier for customers to speak to experts. I found it very frustrating to come from an IT background with a good deal of experience in networking and yet be ignored when I tried to help the team troubleshoot the problem.

If you are able to address these issues you will be able to provide a decent package at a good price. Until then I would advise anyone who requires the speeds on offer to look elsewhere.

Thank you for your time,

Damien

[TJ]

@Dame1701 Thanks for the update Damien. We're sorry to hear that you've left, but very much appreciate your constructive criticism and feedback on your experience.

We're always working to improve our services and I'll make sure that all of your comments are passed on to our Broadband team 🙂