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

[Kemixtry]

I've had 900mb since the end of last year. It was full speed till the 7th Feb then it's been utter garbage. 

5mb downloads and 109Mb uploads. Inconsistent across all devices. 

"Check the wires, reset, restart" even a new Pro 2 hub but still the same. I even plugged in my old standard hub Vodafone router and still the same

it's like port issues or something with really slow downloads. I'm told the speed is 800mb to router. Well that's great but I'm not seeing it, far from it. I've had enough, it's obviously not my router or the wires or the line.

[Foreteewinks]

I have all the same issues discussed . And Im completely fed up with calling Vodaphone and speaking to their service agents who advise all the same stuff which does nothing .

Its a joke , Im passed the 14 day but im close to cancelling and not paying a single penny more .

Does anyone know what relistically Wifi speed should be on a 900 fibre contract where you are 6 feet away from the router via a mobile device ?

thanks

[Ripshod]

Depends on the mobile device and its WiFi capabilities. Also depends on how many other WiFi devices are connected.

To test speed over WiFi is totally invalid as a measure of broadband performance as you're choked by the WiFi connection 

[Kemixtry]

On the pro 2 I've had up to 600mb sat in other rooms. Not lately I can't even get 10mb by ethernet.

It's apparently the realistic figure and when working, works.

Usually around 350mb on wifi if more devices in use.

[Jayach]

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@Foreteewinks wrote:

Does anyone know what relistically Wifi speed should be on a 900 fibre contract where you are 6 feet away from the router via a mobile device ?

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The speed should easily reach the 600/600 over 5Ghz, as mentioned by @Kemixtry  (although they  now seem to not be getting it. even wired) assuming the device you are testing with is capable enough.

You have stated in your earlier post on your thread, you get 700/700 wired. I'm just wondering if the Wi-Fi in your router could be faulty, possibly not broadcasting the 5Ghz signal. However that wouldn't explain the poor speed you get over Powerline.

It might be better to stick to the thread you started, so we can follow the the advice given, and any possible effects thereof.

[VITALIJUS1986]

Check speeds NOW? Ping 11 / 50mbps doawnload  / 422 mbps  upload.. Should be enough for IPTV, but .. I hate vodafone I will not recommend them to anyone.. We all have same problems so do something idiots! 

[Martynux]

Gemma, dedicate a specific person to this troubleshooting, don't send us "helpdesk" and self-service tool route. 

Self service tool requires to unhook my personal equipment and hook up Vodafone router in order to run "diagnostics". There is nothing wrong with the equipment I use, so I see no reason to go through the hassle of that, then dealing with some muppet on first line support who will read from the script and ask me to do irrelevant things. Assign someone who actually knows what he is doing to this case so we can troubleshoot. I know it is not my equipment and I certainly do not have intentions rewiring my network just to prove that. When I say "I know" I mean it, being IT professional of 20+ years and supporting my customers I know the usual suspects and I know it is not the equipment I use. I simply have no patience to deal with someone who has less knowledge than me and will read of the screen the knowledge-base article he pulled from VF KB and then fob me off later. It is simply easier for me to click one button on my VPN client that button being "connect" and forget about crappy internet speeds. That certainly does not resolve the problem, but this is my workaround, as I simply can invest my time that I saved somewhere else than dealing with cheap-labour somewhere in India who has no clue what he is dealing with.

Give me a resource who is competent enough to deal with this matter, then I will hook up Vodafone router to prove if is not equipment to blame. Would be a bit weird though if equipment suddenly starts malfunctioning only at certain times of day and suddenly works fine when VPN tunnel is created. The problem isn't with our equipment or last mile. It is further deeper within Vodafone network.

[Cynric]

@Martynux While I can agree with most of your comment, there is one thing. VF want to test against their router because it is a known element, they cannot be expected to know about all the router devices that may be connected. Using the VF router would enable the test to confirm that the fault is not in your router. Remember that not all customers are technically astute and that they just watch the flashing lights.

[Kemixtry]

It works slightly faster on vpn (10 to 20mb) but most of the time now I use the 5g to get 350mb. Even my 4g is 35mb.

I feel like I'm back in the 56k modem days waiting for pages to respond and load.

One thing I noticed was my local server for speednet testing used to be Edinburgh but now its Manchester. Since it changed, whatever it was, its been this way. Manchester is more local though.

[Jayach]

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@Martynux wrote:

It is simply easier for me to click one button on my VPN client that button being "connect" and forget about crappy internet speeds. That certainly does not resolve the problem, but this is my workaround,

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If it works fine over a VPN, it proves the Vodafone connection is capable of the speeds, and so it must be some problem with the routing within Vodafone.

But getting anyone in Vodafone to investigate the routing is nigh on impossible.

These problems have been around as long as I have been here (2½ years), They seem to come and go as network upgrades are done, but then some other part gets stressed, It's a bit like Whac-A-Mole.