Aberdeen - dreadful speeds tonight - line congestion?

[jellyman]

On CityFibre 900 and speeds are near unusable. Switched to the mobile dongle and they were even worse.

What is going on?

[AverageJoe58243]

[RebelRose]

I believe it's hbbxperts@vodafone.com, without the 'e' in 'experts'. I've been doing this for months too, but they haven't replied in a long time, except to blame CityFibre.

I don't believe it has anything to do with CityFibre though, as there are folks on here on OpenReach with the same issue. Also, as far as I could tell, no one is getting this issue on other ISPs via CityFibre.

The evidence will still help to get out of your contract though.

[Philips]

Anyone else having the slow speeds between 6pm-12am and severe packet loss started up again tonight? 

Joined in August and had <20mbps download between 6pm-12am most nights. Seemed to be ok for a week or two max, but with the odd packet loss issues when gaming in late September but the past few days it's started again.

(I'm on the 900mbps package, I'm also getting routed to Manchester for whatever reason)

Does anyone know how you'd go about getting out of contract without exit fees?

Reported the issues in Mid August, ticket was made, moved to second-line. Kept updating saying waiting for a reply from cityfibre, no reply was given. I kept updating the ticket to say the issues haven't went away until Sep 9th when the ticket was closed.

Was told today by support the second line team said cityfibre fixed the "fault" 2/09 which the definitely didn't as I was still updating the ticket almost daily until Sep 9th as I had the same issues, and they started again the past few days.

Spoke to support chat today who have not helped. Telling me the general troubleshooting and to use the vodafone provider router as they "don't give minimum guaranteed speeds for third party routers", was also told I would have to pay exit fees as the contract doesn't end until 2026, I explained since I've had the issues for over 30 days that per Ofcom's rules/regulations, I'm indeed entitled to leave without exit fees.

After being on the chat for over an hour the person is finally raising it to second line again, but I doubt they'll do anything as they had no communication last time and the issues were not sorted and the ticket was just closed.

It's very clearly a vodafone issue as the network being overloaded by there being too many customers in aberdeen. I know people personally who are on vodafone cityfibre who have the exact same issues in other areas of the city, as well as the many people on these forums that also have the same issues and i haven't seen anyone on a different cityfibre provider in aberdeen with the same issues.

Really don't know what to do here, vodafone has been awful for the service I've recived and the complete lack of communication, would like to move to a different provider ASAP as they clearly won't acknowledge the issues or sort them but I have no idea how to go about doing that as they just say I will have to pay exit fees as my contract doesn't end till 2026. But I would appreciate any advice on what to here. Thanks.

[dfunky]

I've had periods where it seems like they've fixed it but it's just been a bit better for a night or two. Got records of speedtests and tickets from May onwards...

Cancellation fee of 40 some quid here, I plan on emailing the CEO direct with a compiled complaint to tell them to waive it.

https://www.ceoemail.com/s.php?id=ceo-9635

[Philips]

Yeah it's happened a couple times for me where it seems like it's fixed for a couple or a few days then the same issues start again. But emailing the ceo is definitely not a bad shout, anything to try and get this sorted or to get out the contract at this point.

I've also taken records of speedtests since Mid August, screenshots mostly from Speedtest.net and the cloudflare speedtests for the Packet loss and jitter tests, hopefully that would be sufficient evidence.

I'm not sure what I'd be for a cancellation fee but I'd assume quite a fair bit since I joined in August and the contact won't end until mid 2026, but I'm going to try my best to get out of paying that since they aren't fixing the issues, I'd assume all of us with the same problems in aberdeen would be entitled to leave without exit fees, going by Ofcom's regulations.

[RebelRose]

Yeah leaving is going to be my number 1 priority now, but my initial attempts at that with the "cancellations" department were unsuccessful... he just kept repeating the price (it's a whopper), and dismissing the speed guarantee with stuff like "yeah but we can't just take your word for it, anyone could say that to get out of the contract... we'd need an engineer to come and verify", and "it would have to be a constant degradation, not just in the evenings" and all this stuff.

I'm wondering if calling Ofcom tomorrow for some advice might be a good shout, if you guys are going with the CEO route. I think everyone in Aberdeen is suffering this now, and I've wasted soooooo many hours on support calls getting nowhere.

My sister's just been told "CityFibre are going to fix it in 2 weeks, so we can close your ticket now". 

[Philips]

That doesn't surprise me at all, typical corporations. Though you'd think if you show them sufficient evidence of the slow speeds (i.e speedtest screenshots) that would be enough for them to end the contract without exit fees.

Calling ofcom is probably a good idea, see what they can advise. If im not mistaken you can raise a complaint with them against vodafone and show them any evidence of the issues your having, and they might be able to get you out the contract or atleast advise vodafone you are entitled to leave without paying any fees.

It definitely does seem like an Aberdeen wide issue, vodafone seems to be the most popular provider as the prices are the cheapest and for the average person they'd probably go for them. 

I think the issue is probably the fact we were the first in Scotland to get cityfibre infrastructure installed, around 2020-2021 so it's probably not been updated much since then to keep up with the demand and with the amount of customers on cityfibre and especially vodafone, and new ones joining it's just going to keep overloading the infrastructure. Especially since it only happens around 6pm-12am, everything points towards it being that, but for whatever reason it's a vodafone issue only. So then again it could just be there's too many vodafone customers in the UK and that's causing severe network congestion but none of us will probably know since Vodafone nor Cityfibre actually tell us anything.

But yeah I can imagine, I've wasted hours on phone calls and the chat as well, also countless hours of extremely frustrating gaming with the Packet loss as well 😅

That's interesting they've told your sister that though, I had virtually no communication from vodafone about anything from cityfibre but I've seen a few people say that on the forums about "cityfibre are fixing it in x amount of weeks" and they never do. 

[Jayach]

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@Philips wrote:
Does anyone know how you'd go about getting out of contract without exit fees?

If you raise a complaint, don't allow them to close it until you are satisfied it has been resolved. (I realise that may not be easy)

Eventually they will have to take you to "deadlock" at which point they will have to issue a deadlock letter, and once you have that you can take it to Ofcom/CISAS who will make a decision which will be binding. They can also award compensation, if they think it is warrened.

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[Ripshod]

They just don't get it. This problem also affects Openreach connections, making it a vodafone problem. Smoke and mirrors peeps, don't get fixated on Cityfibre. 

[Philips]

That's very interesting that it's also affecting openreach connections as well, yet Vodafone are always blaming it on CityFibre when using their infrastructure. 

Would be good if they'd actually acknowledge it's an issue on their end and fix it or if not let customers leave without exit fees who aren't happy with the service provided.