Slow and unreliable broadband in the evening

[Cliveawalsh]

I've seen some posts about this , but they seem to suggest it's been fixed. Been with Vodafone since October and finding now that the speeds and reliability are poor in the evenings. Watching off iplayer and it will suddenly stop and pause for around a minute, several times. Really annoying. It's fine in the day. I've jumped through some hoops already, like changing from my own tplink router to the Vodafone one, made no difference. Also the tv is connected to the router direct with Ethernet cable and the tech person said to change the WiFi channel. When I explained that I didn't see how the WiFi channel would effect the wired connect she ignored it and insisted I change the channel of WiFi. Anyway. It's still happening. When I do a speed test while it's happening it can be anything from 1 to 15 mbps when it's usually around 35 to 40. Any help or advice?  I think it's due to more people using the internet but not sure. It's jumpy tv when using iplayer or itv hub, or Plex built in to the tv, but if I chromecast plex it seem ok which is odd. Help please

[Mark]

If you pop us a message using the link in my previous reply @AMYAMELIE83, I'm sure one of our dedicated team will be able to get this sorted for you 😊

[Leorodri]

I am with Vodafone for almost 1 year and everything was fine till last Thursday, when this situation started during the evening. The download went from 500MBs Dow to 2.5MBs and the ping up to 30.

called the Vodafone call centre and while I was talking, things miraculously returned to normal, to stop again in the next evening and again in the next.

just checked and it is varying and sometimes downloading at 10MBs and sometimes up to 200MBs and the ping is going between 10 and 30…. Crazy, isn’t it?

 This was the last result I found. Don’t forget, I pay for 500mBps and a ping of 30ms is a killer

[Jayach]

@Leorodri 

Is this over ethernet as well as Wi-Fi?

If it is occurring about the same time every evening, and only over Wi-Fi, it could be interference.

[Leorodri]

Hello @Jayach 

unfortunately, this is happening over Ethernet (and Wi-Fi as well). Tested disabling the Wi-Fi and checking the speed from my pc (directed connected to the router) and the result is also the same.

 

regarding the time, I can’t say the exact time, but every time I need the internet after 8pm is very slow. I wouldn’t say it is interference as it never happened before. It looks more a failure in the infra…. 

a weird thing for me was the fact it returned to full speed while I was talking to the call Center. Maybe just a coincidence?!

 

[Jayach]

If it is happening on the ethernet too, it does sound more likely to be an external problem. If it only occurs in the evening, it sounds like it may be a capacity problem at Vodafone. Give them another ring and see if they can check your line out. Another thing you can do is setup a Thinkbroadband Broadband Quality Monitor, as it will monitor your line and you can see how it is performing over time. You will need to allow ping response in your router.

Broadband Quality Monitor | thinkbroadband

[Leorodri]

@Jayach 

Many thanks for your answer.

I have already created a monitor in the website mentioned by you and will collect data for maybe 2 or three days and then contact Vodafone customer services once again.

So far it is a smooth ride, but can still see some dropped packages:

Let's see how it goes.

Thanks and Regards

[cannavar]

So this is quite funny. I came on the forum to find out why my broadband drops and I get constant lag spikes which cause online gaming to be impossible in the evening. It started Friday night last week and is happening every night since at 6pm. 

I work from home so I monitor and know my connection is perfect during the day. over 900mb down and around 6ms ping response over ethernet. Once the evening replied my speed drops to below 100, sometimes below 10mb...but worst of all, the constant ping spikes going from 6ms to over 1000ms constantly. Online games are impossible. I spent all last night with the vodafone experts restarting the router and messing around with the line. I was 100% certain its not my line or router but they assured me they had resolved it. During the day today, rock solid 900mb download speed. 6ms ping. since 6pm this evening around 30mb and spikes over 1000ms. 

I dont mind throttling. I have worked in IT for long enough to understand the reasoning. But the lag spikes make my use of the service impossible in the evenings. I want to relax, play games but you cannot play online games with lag spikes like that. Its simply horrible. 

I am not sure where to go from here...I dont want to phone up night after night and sit there an hour while they bounce the router and it doesnt change a thing. Surely at some point there has to be an admission its a server issue away from my house? I am sure I got a performance guarantee as well. If it goes on longer I really will need to look for an alternative which would be a shame as its been fine up till now. 

[MrBishop]

Yeah - been weird for me too since late last week. The speed at night drops off a cliff for download, the download speed actually changes depending on the speed test, some will say 15mbps, Ookla will say around 300mbps but starts falling rapidly. Upload speed on any speed test however is fine and well above 800mbps. I get full gigafast speed during the day, but the odd thing is I can still stream netflix and youtube in 4k HDR no problem in the evening, yet trying to download something from github gives me the speed of roughly 15kbps. It almost seems like throttling, but hopefully it's just network congestion that will be resolved. Hope it gets resolved soon as Vodafone have been pretty good service wise for the past few years.

[cannavar]

Yeah sounds exactly the same. 

Here is my current speed...not exactly 900mbps down lol 

And here is the latency issues..

[pauldc]

If you think it's congestion which will get resolved, sadly you are going to be disappointed.  Just read this thread from the beginning to understand how many people have had the same issue and look how far back it goes - I raised mine years ago and "weirdly" after changing ISP things improved overnight.  Vodafone are not worth your time.