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

[sully1311]

Did your speeds drop at peak times?

[bgregor]

Yes down to 2.7meg from 74.

[sully1311]

Yeah, I’d guess a DNS changer wouldn’t resolve that. Most likely the usual VF congestion!

[GJ_DAN]

Well changing to Google DNS has fixed it! No more lag of loading web pages at peak times anymore. Woo! 

[Migwire]

Did your speeds pick up?

Mine has gone from 62mb at 4pm down to 14mb at 8pm on Google DNS. With Express VPN it's running at 28mb.

[pauldc]

I can't pretend to understand everything being done here - I understand the concept of DNS and VPN etc but not exactly why changing these things are helping some users and not others.

What is plain to see is that improvements - sometimes significant ones - are clearly being experienced by users tinkering with settings on their computers.  This surely rules out the old 'tech support' chestnuts of microwave interference/dodgy extension lead/blah-de-blah being the cause.

I left Vodafone 4 weeks ago and am pleased to say I've had a reliable c. 40Mb download every evening since, compared to the c. 2Mb I was getting previously.  You'd think after this time I might have moved on completely, but I'm so desperate to see the company get their come-uppance (and I get a weird kick from the anger I feel at seeing a Vodafone rep pop up periodically and reel off the usual call to social media - because everyone knows that the sales team frequenting Facebook are the best place to get true IT support) that I'm staying subscribed this thread!

Keep up the fight, people. 

[GJ_DAN]

Mines still staying at 55-60mb thankfully. Well it's the first night, but it seems much better. Will see if it continues...

[Jayach]

Changing DNS cannot improve speed, responsiveness yes, speed no.

[GJ_DAN]

Responsiveness was my issue. 

[Jayach]

Then that is good news for you.😀