Fastpath connection (interleaving off)

[Jonnolewis96]

Hi all, my contract has ended on my Vodafone broadband and I have about 10days left before my 30 days notice is up. On my FTTC broadband i had fastpath upload but not download which I guess is decided by the DLM or whatever it's called lol. I was going to go to a network on regular adsl connection and not fibre as I heard you can turn interleaving off your line easy as I'm a gamer and this is just going to be used for gaming as my own line and that's it. I would happily stay on Vodafone if they could offer me this service and was hoping someone from the team could help me with this information as the customer service team have no clue on live chat or phone. Thanks 

[Evie]

Hey there @Jonnolewis96 - It might be worth having a look at the 2 threads below as currently we don't have any updates regarding Fastpath between OpenReach and ourselves.

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Broadband-connection/Why-am-i-not-on-fast-path/td-p/2665519

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Broadband-connection/Change-from-Interleaved-Path-to-Fast-Path-link-... 

Hope this helps!

[Jayach]

Vodafone no longer offer ADSL at all.

[Anonymous]

Okay, so even if you could get ADSL on your line from anyone:

• You can't turn ADSL "fastpath" on yourself, you'd have to speak to tech support, most of whom whatever ISP you use, are not going to have a clue what you are talking about.
• ADSL is likely to be significantly slower than VDSL, and your local cabinet will only have selected "interleave" mode if it needed to.  If it's needed an is not enabled you go into the need to retransmit damaged packages and possibly reduce the data rate - both of which will probably make your gaming worse than sticking with VDSL (FTTC).

I would use a little scepticism, by all means, search to see what I'm saying is correct, and challenge whoever told you that ADSL is better too!

[Jonnolewis96]

I understand what your saying, a friend of mine is a BT engineer and he advised me to get regular vdsl as the team your with can change it for you on there to fastpath. I dont think Vodafone offer vdsl anyway so I'll have to try elsewhere I guess

[Anonymous]

Most customers with Vodafone will be on VDSL2 mode 8A (Superfast 1) or 17A connections (Superfast 2), like many other ISPs they'll only offer ADSL where VDSL2 is not available for some reason - for the simple reason that in MOST cases VDSL2 is far superior.

It might help us if you can explain the problem you are having with your gaming, along with your download speeds and ping/lag.

*Personal, some of my neighbours can only get ADSL due to cabinet oversubscription, their maximum connection speeds are just 1.5Mbps compared to my own 49Mbps on Superfast 2.  Those lower speeds also mean that their lag while gaming online is significantly greater than even an interleaved connection on VDSL2 would be!

[Jonnolewis96]

I understand what you mean, I have virgin media 360 meg download in my house that the family use, however during peak times especially the connection gets so bad that online gaming gets annoying with delayed / laggy gameplay. Your neighbour's internet might be getting used by more than one device so I can imagine so. Mine is just going to be solely used for my playstation only so I shouldn't experience lag. Turning off interleaving can be a difference between having 30ms ping to 5-10 ms so I would really like to try that, if not I could upgrade back to the 35-40 meg I have now. It's not necessarily a need for adsl it's just I'd love a fast path connection as every ping counts in my gameplay. Thanks for the reply.

[Anonymous]

This is an awfully expensive "what-if"!  You'd be signing up for a contract that I strongly doubt is going to do what you are expecting.

If you have a VDSL line where there is interleaving, then the latency increases as the interleaving depth increases.  A 20+ms increase in latency would mean you have a deep interleave and indicates a very poor phone line!  In order to have a 10ms return from a gaming server you would need to be almost sat on top not only it, but Vodafone's routing servers too (both AWS or Google have servers that are very close to the VF routing servers) !  Even with the best connection going, the average latency to a UK based gaming server is likely to hover around the 20ms mark.

Regards access to the Virgin 360Mbps connection, in most cases judicious use of QOS, including bandwidth limiting for specific clients should be enough to keep most people gaming happily!