Gigafast 900 outages & downtime saga

[sywilkin]

I moved to VF Gigafast 900 in Reading on 6th Jan 2022. Install went smoothly & I was initially delighted at speed tests of around 800Mbs up & down. But then the problems began. Here is the saga and some things to look at if you're thinking about VF Gigafast service.

My first outage was after only 12 hours & was down for just under 2 weeks. It went down again yesterday after working OK for about 10 days. I am expecting it to be down for at least 3 or more days due to VF L3 support working hours.

My support experience went like this.

1. Escalation quickly from helpdesk to l2 support and up to l3 vodafone support (as they eliminate cabling issues, user error & do many factory-resets & restarts etc)
2. I did run some PCAP's that indicated the "PADI" was not being processed by the VF server (this info was ignored by VF until day 12)
3. The case was then batted between l3 Vodafone & Cityfibre support many times (each claimed it was the other's issue). You should know that the SLA for each move is 24-48 hours meaning each time it moves from VF to Cityfibre & back it adds 24 hours to your downtime.
4. You need to ask specific questions to get responses. Like "Can VF / CityFibre see the PADI messages from my router?". The answer - in my case - "Yes", So it is not the router, not ONT, not cabling...
5. Finally, they asked for my PCAP files (which were identical PPPoE errors for the 2 x VF + Draytek routers by the way). The problem was resolved 24 hours later. A coincidence perhaps?

My current outage is once again is at L3 support. The same errors on my Draytek - The "PPPoE server is not responding"

Those who are looking at this article if trying to decide whether to go for VF / CityFibre service:

1) The service appears to be quite "fragile"

2) The people who can really fix these issues (the L3 guys) only work Monday-Friday and operate on a minimum 24 hr service level for turnaround. So if you are lucky enough to have a failure on a Friday, do not expect it to be fixed until at least Monday/ possibly Tuesday

Service availability stats for my internet for the (almost) first month 43% uptime. Caviat Emptor!

[Evie]

Hi @sywilkin - I'm disappointed to hear this, it isn't the start we would've wanted you to have with us 😔 If the tech ticket is now with our third line team rest assured they will be working on getting this resolved for you as soon as possible. They should've sent you a text message with a contact number and reference number so that you can call them and get updates.

While we don't have the same systems as our dedicated Gigafast team or third line tech team we will be able to check for update on your account if you contact us on social media. Make sure to include a link back to your forum post and landline/account number when contacting us on social media.

[sywilkin]

Good to see Vodafone is functioning well. Having checked just my latest bill & last one, I have been fully charged for not getting the service for half the month. Not sure how that works. Maybe get charged twice as much if I had no service at all?

I was promised compensation, but this is probably another aspect of VF that does not work either!

As to working hard on fixing the problem. This only applies Monday-Friday, Strange really, as this being a Home broadband service, Vodafone clearly does not think problems need resolving when we're at home?

[THG3000-IPv6]

No disrespect to @Evie, but I do not know what exactly their job is (as Moderators of this forums) but contacting social/media team when @sywilkin managed to get hold of L3 support make it look grotesque especially if they work Mon-Fri only

On the other hand, I have seen some reviews of a local ISP digging trenches around here for the FTTP and there are plenty of unhappy customers there as well complaining of their FTTP not working.
(But, many do complain that the speed of 900Mbps is not as promised when connected over Wi-Fi  ;-( )

[Jayach]

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@THG3000-IPv6 wrote:

No disrespect to @Evie, but I do not know what exactly their job is (as Moderators of this forums) 

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The Mods are also the social media team, which is why they try to push people that way.

[CrimsonLiar]

So I've got to admit that I'm curious as to how you are capturing the PADI & PADO signals using packet capture since this would normally only show in the primary router logs as it shouldn't be appearing inside your LAN.  So I'm curious as to how you have your equipment set up!

[THG3000-IPv6]

@CrimsonLiar Got a middle man between the ONT and Router

[sywilkin]

@CrimsonLiar, I figured I just needed to check the PPPoE requests were going out. So I put a Netgear Prosafe 5 port switch inline (between wan port & ONT). I plugged my laptop in also. Wireshark then captured the broadcast frames. There is a PPPoE decoder built-in to Wireshark & Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to-Point_Protocol_over_Ethernet) provided a reference.  Could see the PADI's and then PADT's. All pretty dry stuff, and makes you sleep well!

So I confirmed that traffic was going outbound and this was eventually also confirmed by CityFibre (they could see the traffic). I guess since the environment is new there are some dodgy config/line cards (I know they already replaced one set in our local cabinet). Hope this helps

[sywilkin]

Now into day 4 of outage & no sign of a fix. Escalated to L3 and the case got closed yesterday but no one thought to check if the problem was solved. The case reference is not recognised by the call system so back to the completely useless chatbot.

Are there no limits to the uselessness of Vodafone's support

[Jayach]

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@sywilkin wrote:

Are there no limits to the uselessness of Vodafone's support

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I really don't think so. just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

Have you raised a official complaint, they should follow it through to resolution. Complaints Code of Practice | Vodafone