Broadband speed inconsistent and completely unrelated to sync speed

[gr4ce]

It's been a few months after I have been with Vodafone for my internet connectivity.

I have to say that in general I am disappointed not only by the quality of the broadband connection but also the way Vodafone deal with issues, and I am about to explain what I mean.

First of all let me clarify that I will give details about my broadband measurements, download speed, upload speed and ping that I have been collecting since April 2019, when my contract started. Those measures are collected every hour when my PC is on (I leave it on most of the times overnight). I used Ookla Speedtest as a provider which seems to be widely used to get these sort of metrics.

In the following chart you can see download speed (the upload and ping give overall the same info) where the numbers on the y axis are in 10xMBps (so 2 is actually 20 Mbps). The blue dots are hourly samples while the yellow line is the moving average over 20 samples

As you will clearly notice the first 10/15 days were bad with average speed around 15 Mbps (for a broadband that should be at 65 Mbsp).
Then something magically happen and since mid April to mid July you can see the samples being at 70 Mbps, which was great. But at some point around mid July the performance dropped again, not as bad as in the beginning but close enough, and it's been like that ever since.

Now, the most annoying thing about Vodafone support is that they won't say that there is any problem as long as the sync speed is 65 Mbps, but as you can clearly tell that is completely disconnected from the reality of what a broadband can really offer.

The question for Vodafone is: "Why are you writing in the contract (see below) that you guarantee download speed and you don't mention anything about sync speed if that's the metric you use?"

[Tash]

Hi @gr4ce, I'm sorry to see you've noticed a change in your current speeds! With your guaranteed speed, this is 39.97Mbps from the picture you've attached - this is your sync speed which you can find at any time from the main page in our Vodafone Broadband app. 

If you notice your speeds are falling below your guaranteed minimum speeds or there's been a change in your service, we'll be happy to check this out. Please drop us a message on Facebook or Twitter and we'll take a closer look. 

By including your Community username and a link to your post, you won't need to write out your query again and we can use the pictures you've added with any checks we carry out. 

[gr4ce]

Hi @Tash,

thanks for your reply.

>>this is your sync speed which you can find at any time from the main page in our Vodafone Broadband App

Well I believe this is arguable as in the table above it's not specified what speed is guaranteed and I assume this is done on intentionally to make it difficult for the customer to understand what they are paying for.
"Dear customer, you will get X min download speed, Y max download speed but the guaranteed speed in Z...."
how does Z relates to X and Y?

This is the point I was trying to make (that I think wasn't taken into account in your reply) the fact that sync speed and download/upload speed are completely unrelated (or maybe they are slightly, just that the sync speed is an unrealistic upper bound for download/upload speed) From the Vodafone Broadband app looks like my sync speed has always been 70Mbps and you can see how that translates to download speed over time with my measurements.

Now, I can understand that there could be some variance due to several factors (the PC where I am measuring has ethernet cable no wifi) but I am more interested in the average over time. That would tell you from the customer point of view what's the perceived speed. 

I have already contacted the tech support and the best they could offer was to reset the modem, which obviously didn't do anything.

I am not just concerned about upload/download speed and ping (which is definitely ruining my experience with media and games) but also for my job as there are days where the connection in meetings drops. 
This is not the kind of broadband I signed up for as the changes in the performance are demonstrated by my measurements and show a breach of the terms of the contract.

I know from Vodafone's point of view they will say there is no problem as the sync speed is what is expected, but the whole point of the post is to demonstrate that has nothing to do with download/upload/ping. 

[clint_flick]

Hi

Hopefully from my screenshot you can see what my max values could be.

Then the speed at which some reduction in monthly costs or actually leave the contract.

VDSL Range A (Clean) 
VDSL Range B (Impacted) 

80	75.2	20	19	69.3
80	74	20	19	67.2

Obviously I don't actually get that (my best was with VM 111 - 113 mbbs)

figure of 80, but it is close...

Line Quality

  Downstream Upstream

Current Rate	75876 kbps	19999 kbps
Maximum Rate	80067 kbps	23298 kbps
Signal-to-Noise Ratio	5.8 dB	7.7 dB

So perhaps you have some scope for your problem to be treated differently.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2017/01/bt-wholesale-broadband-checker-adds-downstream-handbac...

VF have their values and OR theirs, and you have a perception that all is not well.

[Evie]

Hey there @gr4ce - 

Your Minimum Guaranteed Speed would be stated at the point of sale when you take out the broadband order. Most the times the speeds that the line can achieve and the average speeds are higher, however, the Minimum Guaranteed Speed will be lowest that you should be getting to your router. If the speeds falls below this to your router, we can investigate why.

Even if the sync speed is fine through our tests but are still experiencing issues, this can be looked into and we wouldn't just turn you away.

So please don't hesitate to get in contact with your landline/account number 😊

[Dlaidlaw20]

Why not just get Gfast?