Broadband not impressed

[RobDon]

Hi all.

I had full fibre 900 installed 2 weeks ago which uses the CityFibre line. I used to have Sky fibre 500 which was installed by Openreach (BT).

With the Sky fibre I had no issues of any kind, download speeds used to regularly hit 450Mbps through the Xbox.

But now with the Vodaphone 900 fibre it just never seems to work right. Wifi drops out quite a lot and I have my TV and Xbox connect using cables (I've tried CAT5e and CAT6 cables) and they don't connect at all. If I unplug the cable and plug it back in, then I get a connection, so the connection is there is just doesn't connect. It does this EVERY time? Never had these hassles with Sky. The download speeds are also very disappointing, only ever reaches a max of around 350Mbps. I went for the 900 line for faster downloads but it's slower than the Sky 500.

Outside they have also left slabs sticking up, trunking exposed and a big line across my grass, very poor standard of installation. Strongly considering cancelling it as I'm within the 14 days cooling off period.

[Ripshod]

All the default settings are on a label  on the base of the router.

Great to see you have some speed back👍

[Cynric]

.@RobDon Oh, that sounds unhelpful of VF. Well you'll have to speak to their helpdesk or use the chatbot called "Tobi". 

Broadband team directly on 08080 034 515.

Tobi sulks sometimes with a particular browser, https://www.vodafone.co.uk/bbservcd/ should get you connected. [Edit: Forget that, I forgot about the label].

Meanwhile an unmanaged switch does not need any configuration change on the router, Just plug on of its ports into a LAN socket on the router and you device into one of the free sockets on the switch.

Cat5 ethernet cable maximum run length is 100m, so unless your device is more than 200m away from the router you''l be fine. 😀

[RobDon]

Thanks for the info, got into the router now.

I have ordered the TP-LINK LS1005G from Amazon, price 8.99. Hopefully that sorts things out. 

[Jayach]

If the problem with the Xbox was the "not connecting when coming out of energy save", it should.

The TV, I'm not so sure, but do let us know.

[CrimsonLiar]

FYI, because of issues surrounding the XBox coming out of sleep mode (not just with Vodafone routers), Microsoft is rolling out the ability to set the console to turn off properly!

[RobDon]

OK thanks, duly noted!

What sort of routers are people using in place of the Vodaphone one?

Would a TP-Link AC1600 ADSL/VDSL wireless gigabit router VC600 work?

[Jayach]

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@RobDon wrote:

What sort of routers are people using in place of the Vodaphone one?

Would a TP-Link AC1600 ADSL/VDSL wireless gigabit router VC600 work?

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Very much depends on if they are on FTTC or FTTP.

If you are on FTTC, then that would be perfect, but really just about any router can be used.

Although if you are using Vodafone's digital voice (VoIP) you may lose easy access to that.

[RobDon]

I'm not sure if I am fibre to a cabinet or fibre to the premises - I think it's to a cabinet as there are CityFibre cabinets in my street. My Openreach connection was FTTP.

[Jayach]

If you are on CityFibre, it's definitely FTTP, so you don't really want a VDSL router. (It can be used, but if getting a new router go for just a router)

Also you will be on digital voice, so if the telephone service is important to you, that is something else to take into account

[RobDon]

OK great, thanks for that.

I got the gigabit switch and it has cured the Xbox not recognising the cabled connection, so that's good.

However I'm still only getting under 350Mbps download speed on the 900 line? With Sky/Openreach I used to see up to 450Mbps download speeds on a 500 FTTP line. I cancelled Sky because they wanted to put the price up to £50 a month for a 500Mbps line and Vodaphone were offering a 900 line for £27 a month. Part of me regrets moving to Vodaphone.