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Questions about Vodafone's Gigafast service from a potential customer.

Anonymous
Not applicable

I am currently with Virgin Media on their Gigabit product. 1.Gb/50Mb. I use my own router a GT-AX11000. VM allow their modem/router to be switched to modem only mode to allow folk to use third-party routers.   I live in Coventry, a Vodafone/City Fibre Gigafast city. Their FTTP network is being laid in our street as I type so, naturally, I am interested in a possible move to Vodaphone. A nice symmetrical 900Mb sounds perfect.

 

Firstly, is Gigafast a decent service with good reliability, low ping and close to advertised speeds. VM always provide slightly more than the advertised Broadband. Before I switched to modem only mode the SamKnows app measured my download speed at 1.17Gb. What is the typical ping? VM's ping is about 13ms, rather slow. Are speeds and ping worse at peak times? 

 

Secondly, can the Vodafone modem/router be put in modem-only mode to allow for my Asus GT-AX11000 to function in full router mode?  If not, is there an officially countenanced work-around?  This issue is a potential deal breaker.

 

Thirdly, is customer services any good?  In normal times, are waiting times reasonable and are the operatives well-enough informed to get you the help you need. Do engineers attend promptly? 

 

Fourthly, I know that a proper TV service isn't offered, but that TV boxes with useful apps such as Apple TV and Netflix are available. If I had two boxes do the boxes talk to each other like VM's TV boxes do? Programmes recorded on one box can be watched in a different room on another box. 

 

Finally, at the time of installation and activation, is fibre brought all the way from the pavement into the house, or is coax used on the property? Does the cable merely go to the nearest point of entry or will it be extended to the point in the house one requires it? VM brought their coax from the pavement to the room I required and connected our two V6 boxes by TV coax back to the internal terminal. 

 

Thank you, in advance, for any information provided.

 

 

27 REPLIES 27

Anonymous
Not applicable

Yup your ASUS GT-AX110000 will have more than enough power to properly handle the connection.

 

You would need to request the broadband service user name and password.  If you get an ONT then you'd also have to venture into the IPTV settings and set VLAN = 911 on the WAN connection.  But if (as seems increasingly common) you get a (G)PON instead there is no need for the VLAN setting.

 

I don't know what you are running the Plex server on, but if it's performing transcoding on the fly, it'll probably bottleneck way before you get anywhere close to 900Mbps!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Thanks for all that info.  Hopefully, I will get a (G)PON arrangement. There isn't a first class option for VLAN in ASUS routers, but they can be configured to VLAN in the LAN settings > IPTV tab. As you say, I would have to be supplied  standard authentication for PPPOE before I can proceed. 

I'm running my Plex server on a Synology DS220+ 8-Bay. As a dedicated piece of kit its limitation atm is my 50Mb upstream. Three simultaneous users uses up all the 40Mb I have reserved for it. Under those circumstances the  NAS processor still has plenty capacity left. It would be a pretty rare occasion for more than 3 users to be streaming simultaneously. 

gipjon
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member

It would be good if you could keep us updated on what you get etc 

Anonymous
Not applicable

I will. I'm awaiting the go-ahead from Vodaphone, telling us that the network is ready locally. I will want their sales team to be able to reassure me about the questions I have asked here. If they can't., then I will stick with what I have got. 

Please note that the reason I had to ask these questions here is that the team who followed up my registration of interest, hadn't a clue, not even when they went away to talk to their line-manager. 

Anonymous
Not applicable

That the majority of support on VF is clueless is something you'll have to get used to.  Even the early adopters of the "Pro" service seem to be finding that the "WiFi Xperts" are just as clueless!

 

One point on the VLAN settings on the Asus routers:  In the Merlin firmwares, we've already seen a Beta where the ability to set the VLAN on the WAN port was moved to the WAN>Internet-connection page of the web admin, so it may come.  It's probably only still where it is for the sake of consistency, the options being: leave it where it is (not my fav), split between the connection page and IPTV page (not ideal), move all the IPTV settings to the connection page such as on some recent TP-Link router firmwares.  With the encroaching demise of IPTV services, we'll probably see the VLAN settings moved to the Internet-connections at some point a-la TP-Link.  That the VLAN setting is not on the Internet-Connection page doesn't make it any less capable.

 

What I am seriously curious about it the sort of throughput the AX11000 is capable of when using OpenVPN!

gipjon
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member

HI @Windlown 

Not sure if this will help at all but on this thread, There is a graph of how the gigafast is performing, The graph is about halfway down the thread and is under more options, The user was anandpatel15

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Internet-speed/Upload-Speed-Dropped/td-p/2687151

Anonymous
Not applicable

That it a pretty grim example you gave there. Latency looks surprisingly high for true fibre and the guy is getting consistently low upstream speeds. Is that typical? If, as suggested, speed is being capped to squeeze in more customers, then that is not on. I bet Vodaphone are assuming that with 900/900 people won't notice a moderate drop in service, but they would be wrong. People paying for that much bandwidth are either speed freaks who will be checking speed daily or people running a business who actually need it. 🤣

 

I'm used to getting what I pay for with Virgin, usually slightly faster. I just wish they would sort out their upstream to at least 10:1, (downstream/upstream) then I might not be looking elsewhere. 

gipjon
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member

I don't know if gigafast is better in one area than in another area. Maybe that customer is just unlucky where he lives. (last house on the circuit maybe). I don't know if that chart is 100%. The problem is there is just not enough data to support anything 

Well, I have had a shocking last 4 weeks and I am being forced to cancel the Gigafast 900 service see here:

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Internet-speed/Gigafast-900-poor-speeds-and-help-required/td-p/26866...

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Broadband-connection/Questions-about-Vodafone-s-Gigafast-service-fro...

 

My honest view is that for the first 11 months of the service, it worked very well. Some drops in download over that time but put it down to congestion but nothing bad. Pings were 5 and most days, I could get close to 900 down and up. A month ago I would have (and did) recommend it.

 

I used my own Asus AC86 router directly connected to the ONT. It worked well and speeds were all good.

 

A month ago, my ping dropped to 15 and many sites max out at 12MB down! I can constantly reproduce and am certain it is not the remote server as they are supplying good speeds to colleagues who have tested for me at the same times.

 

Tech Support have constantly been unable or unwilling to look at my actual issue and just constantly push me to take screen shots of Speedtest.net. they are not prepared to acknowledge the fault I can constantly reproduce. 

 

Customer Relation have in a 30 minute chat decided that I am not able to cancel this faulty product and will need to pay a termination fee. So I'm left with the Deadlock and CSA ombudsman. Very sad that I am unable to speak to someone at VF who knows how to fault find to at least a point where we can say where the fault is even if it is not fixable.

 

So, as for the company and service, please dont go anywhere near Gigafast if you would ever need someone to help you if there are problems. If that is not an issue, go ahead, when it was working, it was good value.

 

 

Hi, my response keeps getting deleted. Are there rules about links to other posts that a bot auto deletes posts?

 

I'll try again without the links.