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Superfast2 degraded evening service (logged speedtests)

richbos
3: Seeker
3: Seeker

We signed up for Superfast2 which was initially stable at over 70mbps 24/7. After a month or so it started to degrade with notable speed fluctuations. Although now stable during the day the speed drops to between 5mbps and 15mbps between 5.30 and 11pm every evening.
I'm an IT systems engineer so have a rolling speedtest configured from a Raspberry Pi to monitor the connection. The Pi plugs directly into the router via ethernet and runs a cli speedtest on a cronjob every 30 minutes. The results are pushed into InfluxDB and pulled into Grafana. I have attached some of the results to highlight the issue (30 days and 7 days), as well as the Vodafone speed test advisory.
I am keen to get this resolved as signup guaranteed 55mbps and we are now paying for a service we are not receiving. Although their wording with this is ambiguous as it reads "If it doesn't achieve the minimum guaranteed speed for a sustained period"

Vodafone do state that if connection speed doesn't meet advised standards and they are unable to resolve it that customers are entitled to cancel, as such I will be contacting them during the evening slowdown to report the issue. 

19 REPLIES 19

Hi, to update, after a week or so I finally had a response on the Twitter DM, again asking for security account/verification details I'd already given them multiple times (they like repeatedly asking, it feels like a delay tactic to try and beat you into apathy). Details supplied - tumbleweeds. Expect they will get back in another few days asking me to go round the scripted testing routines again. Meanwhile the connection is further degrading, now with periods of zero connectivity (see attached grab).

Amusingly I recieved a 'TalkTalk' promo through the door the other day, promising the world on a stick with 'guaranteed speed' and an easy out within 30 days. Every fixed line provider I've been with has been perfect for the first 30 days, then the connection goes to ##~##, without exception. It's like there's some sort of priority connection for new customers, then you're dropped.

As I've previously said, I honestly think they are all the same and none are able (or willing) to deliver reliable home broadband at scale for 'all' customers. Imagine if your electricity or water supply delivered sporadic and degraded output, yet it seems totally normal to charge for a high speed internet connection and not supply it, nor have an established and easy route for issue reporting and resolution.

For info also, I never had any respopnse from the official complaint I logged. Absolutely nothing at all, so if anyone was thinking about that route I perhaps wouldn't bother. They all offer these reporting systems which in reality are nothing but sinkholes to pacify customers into thinking something might actually happen.

Cynric
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member

I was on John Lewis broadband for the previous 2 years on a 32Mb contract. Just one day out of two years with a poor line which they fixed in less that 4 hours. Apart from that day the speed was better than 32Mb, normally 34 to 36Mb. The only reason I moved to VF was that promise of 63Mb (that's what the advert says, "63 Mbps Average download speed"). As my experience with VF has been so rotten I should have stayed with JL.

Here's an update on the support delay tactics Vodafone are using and what you may encounter.

They now say they need to authenticate our account security details every 24 hours. As they seem only willing to communicate via Twitter DM, and given they get round to responding at around 3 days (if you are lucky) this is of course proving ridiculous, especially when the information they request is already present in the DM thread. It's an obvious delay tactic designed to frustrate, as was their bizarre switch to requesting we use a Twitter account that exactly matched our account name (we had to set up a totally new account).

Meanwhile our connection continues to degrade, now with periods of zero connectivity, and we have still had no response whatsoever to our official complaint.

Jayach
16: Advanced member
16: Advanced member

When I was having my problems I simply did not use the social media channels. The only social media I use is WhatsApp and then only because my family use it.

I always use the phone and although I had to authenticate every time (even when they called me!) it's so much easier when you are speaking to someone. Once you have a fault call logged they text you a new telephone number and you put in your error code and at least get to someone who will deal with your problem. It still takes a long time to get answered though.

The abilities of the agents on second line varies so sometime it's worth just calling again for an update and hope the next person has new ideas.

Hope you can get your problem resolved soon.

That’s solid advice and I think it will have to be the phone/call route. No matter the direction pushed it seems Twitter DM isn’t fit for this level of issue reporting and resolution.

Hi Richbos et all

 

I too am now seeing serious drops in throughput in the evening.  This starts at 7pm, continues to drop to its worst at 8pm and come back to regular speeds when the clock hits about 11pm.

I have been grabbing screenies of Speedtest and collating them in a document.  I started to monitor this beginning of october.

 

My feel is that Vodafone's network is hit with massive congestion at the border gateways, as I can get good speeds as long as I test a connection that is from VF to VF.  As soon as I try to measure real world traffic (IPs in US, game servers,..) then I can see the ping degrading, Jitter coming in and throughput dropping.

 

Is there any way you could test at IP level?

 

thanks for your thoughts

Hi @I_saw_Megabit - That's an interesting observation. Not sure about modifying the speedtest-cli utility I use as although they tag the cli version as being aimed at developers there doesn't seem to be any option for bespoke configuration - https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli.

As it goes I'm probably out of patience and energy with trying to get any coherent response from VF support, Twitter DM is totally pointless and I have also been advised against detailing security/account information in a social media channel (albeit a DM, but still).


Fortunately (?) for now my connection seems to have levelled out somewhat (see attached grab for last 24 hours). I'm sure it won't last, but there we are. I wouldn't be able to present anything to them for diagnosis while it's 'up'.

richbos
3: Seeker
3: Seeker

How annoying, after spending (literally) weeks on Twitter DM to @VodafoneUK and going through multiple levels of security to verify account ownership they are now saying they can't assist as the 'social media' account (Twitter name) doesn't match the Vodafone account (name).

Most unhelpful indeed. Looks like to only way to get any assistance via the Twitter support channel would be to set up a new Twitter account that exactly matches the name on the Vodafone account, and restart the whole laborious process. It's utterly ridiculous. 

UCG
2: Seeker
2: Seeker

Hi mate I am having the same issue and we are in the same boat, I am also an IT engineer, my speed is getting low at 12 MBPS in evening and night time , if you find any resolution please share

 

Thanks

 

U

@UCG - Yes, I'll see how I get on and keep updating here, however I'm not at all hopeful as I've been here before with other providers. Irrespective of any Ofcom legislation or speed 'guarantee' they all make things as laborious as possible when trying to report an issue, so much so that I'm sure many just give up and ride out their contract until they can leave (we had to do that with Virginmedia, they were truly appalling, and bare faced liars).

I've had two weeks of Twitter DM dialogue with Vodafone with multiple account security verifications, however they have now decided they won't process my complaint as the Twitter account name used didn't match the name on the Vodafone user account. We have since set up a brand new account that does (which is utterly ridiculous) and re-posted all previous information, screen grabs etc, but so far have heard nothing back.

In all honesty I don't believe the technology actually exists for these providers to deliver reliable home broadband at scale. The nearest we have had was Three (HomeFi) which utilised 3G/4G, and it was pretty decent until we moved to an area where the 4G signal was saturated, and dropping the router to (less saturated) 3G, although semi-reilable, wasn't really fit for purpose.

For what it's worth I've attached a 30 day grab from our monitoring solution which clearly displays when the issue began.