FTTP/Cityfibre. Traffic shaping suspected. Poor download speeds during evenings. MUCH better on VPN

[Martynux]

Dear Vodafone,

It is time you admit that you are applying traffic shaping on your internet connection during the evenings.

I have always wondered why some traffic goes through better than other in the evenings.

I have done extensive testing in the past few days and I have come across to the below findings:

Internet connection speeds drop down to miserable 2-3 megabits download during the evenings / peak time. Upload though goes well and I'd say it is intact.

So I have done some testing. I have connected to different VPN providers to the servers nearby in the UK as well as abroad as far as Iceland and Lithuania.

And guess what - Over the VPN I get 200+ mbps results, immediately as I drop out from VPN and do the test on a clean line I again get those miserable few megabits.

Now if you are technical enough you must understand the irony here.

Going through VPN channel always should give you lower speeds as extra hops and conditions involved in the traffic/equipment. However when on VPN, speed test results are always better. Always, not sometimes, but always. And considerably much better than having connection without being wrapped up in VPN.

This indicates only one thing - QOS/Traffic shaping is in place with Vodafone during peak times.

Tell me, Vodafone, please, why when I am paying for 900mbps I am getting the service of a few megabits during peak times? And please, keep that rubbish to yourself when you start stating - oh it is probably your router, your Wi-Fi and so on. No it is not! I know it is not. I am getting exactly the same results on wired connection using Vodafone or any other router. To be precise your router is a piece of junk that is good for grandmas who watch BBC iPlayer and send three WhatsApp messages a day. I am and advanced user, a technician in fact, with 20+ years of IT support under my belt. 

It is not my router to blame, not my corporate grade wireless access point, not even cheap Vodafone router to blame, it is the policies that Vodafone has set on the back end to shape the traffic during busiest periods.

And it is not fair. I am paying for 900mbps service, yet during evenings I get 300 times slower speeds than I am paying for. Even daytime I rarely reach anything more than 500mbps, it doesn't really bother me that much as I consider speeds above 100mbps acceptable and I simply have no patience to call your India-based call centres and speak to so called "experts" who read from the script, have little to no actual knowledge, and won't deviate from script that they read from the knowledge-base and give a pre-defined answers from templates.

Explain this please, how is this fair, and how is this a good value for money that I am paying? I am actually considering leaving Vodafone, at least when I had broadband over copper line I was getting consistent speeds 24/7. Heck, even with 3 mobile 4G connection I had better speeds than with you guys! 

I see no reason why I should be utilising VPN in order to increase my internet browsing experience. It is an extra expense as well as extra burden that I have to go through in order to reach acceptable connection speeds.

Three days ago, in the evening I was trying to download 5 gigabyte Windows 10 ISO file from Microsoft, I was getting estimated time of download of 7 hours over 900mbps FTTP line. Makes sense? - Thought so, it does not make sense to me either.

Feel free to reach out to me for troubleshooting if you are brave enough to deal with me, I promise you, I won't go easy on you, but I promise to be reasonable and respectful. However I won't take your nonsense and won't accept that it is something to do with my equipment, because I know it is not the equipment.. It is not, and I know, period!

I have done plenty of testing internally, I have tested my independent wireless AP throughput over local network and I have amazing results as long as Vodafone is not in the picture. Anything routed through Vodafone internet link is rubbish unless I wrap that device that is reaching out to the internet to VPN. 

I really don't enjoy having to jump through the hoops just to have something that should be provided to me already because it is a contractual obligation. I expect the service to be delivered as per contract, not some lame excuses from cheap labour agent somewhere in India who has no idea what he is talking about.

So to sum this up:

From 18:00 onwards to around 22-24h connection speeds drop dramatically to miserable few megabits, sometimes if lucky 30-40mbps, never goes above 100. 

No difference if Vodafone or other independent router / access point used, connection still rubbish.

When on VPN, then connection is much better - going to 200-300mbps speeds.

Outside those hours connection speeds are much better, good enough not to complain about. 

I work from home supporting different timezones and working during evenings is a challenge due to this issue. I certainly have an impact on my work performance due to this.

My equipment/plan:

Cityfibre FTTP 900mbps.

Draytek Vigor 2925 router

Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-nanoHD.

Location: Aberdeen

To add a cherry on top of this cake: it is not only me that is having this issue here in Aberdeen. There are 3 more of us (and I can provide their details on request) who are subscribed to Cityfibre/Vodafone FTTP service and we all are having exactly the same issue during evenings. We all live in different areas of the city, so the problem is city-wide, not only to specific area within the city. 

Please get this sorted rather than ignore or give silly answers claiming it is our equipment. It is not. I know it, and you know it too. Time to call things as they are. 

Best regards,

Marty

[Ripshod]

Honestly? At that price point I'd jump ship. VM is better than your Vodafone connection. 

[P1x3l8]

Really - Even although its FTTP v FTTC with VM... Is that because VM have better infrastructure?

[Ripshod]

I never said to go back to VM, just that it was better that what you're getting from Vodafone. Certainly look at other providers, even if they also use Cityfibre. 

[P1x3l8]

?  "... At that price point I'd jump ship. VM is better than your Vodafone connection."

VM for BB only is currently £61 pcm!  So do you think it's a fixable issue at my end or am I fighting a losing battle? 

[Ripshod]

If you don't get connected to the Edinburgh gateway after this 10 minute downtime or a router reset then I suggest leaving. Staying would probably stress you out, especially if you're a gamer or want to use video chat services.

There's something about this Edinburgh to Manchester link - it seems to be the worst of any I've seen in other threads. I also had my own experience of it - it's a nasty wee beastie. 

[P1x3l8]

OKydokey - I'll try the reset and see what happens and update. Thanks to you guys/galls for your support and candidness as it really helps to know your not being fed rubbish...When I update should I do the cmd thing again to show if its edinburgh connection?

[Ripshod]

You can post the results if you want, but if you see 90.246.0.1 close to the start you're still on the same gateway.

If that IP isn't there then post it and we'll locate for you. 

[P1x3l8]

Same 90.246.0.1 as before but speeds worse now than before reset - Uploads are now lots lower!!! :_(

[P1x3l8]

Also, is there significant difference between the ping/latency between my VM and Vodafone graph above as I think the latency is worse? For reference, here's my new post reset Vodafone BQM: 

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/51e698a464e82de2ec81226dde1b76431a110c8f

[Cynric]

@P1x3l8  That looks like IGMP Ping is "off" for the WAN setting because of the big red blob initially, then the later bit hasn't really had enough time to collect a good period of data.