4g broadband

[Davidch]

I use a Vodafone sim to supply household broadband in a rural area with no landline  option for broadband. We get a good signal and speeds (4g+) around 100Mbps during the day, Every night without fail at around 6pm, the speed drops to 3 or 4 Mbps and stays that way until morning. I presume this is a cost saving measure by Vodafone to reduce bandwidth at times of perceived low usage. I have read Vodafone’s explanation of this as a green measure, but of course it is a massive inconvenience to users. Also, as it  appears to be done to a fixed schedule, it is presumably not done on the basis of actual demand. As we effectively have no internet for much of the time - particularly when streaming TV etc in the evening - I wondered if Vodafone had any plans to introduce some sort of intelligent monitoring of demand at the mast so they are fully able to meet demand at all times, rather than in working hours only. I had previously signed up to Three (and rather regret changing) and they didn’t appear to ration bandwidth in this way. 

[Effie]

Hey @Davidch I hope you are well. Traffic and usage on our network and masts is closely monitored and patterns analysed so that we can provide the best service possible. We have no news from the Network teams regarding plans to change the way the network operates currently but anything like that will be added to the Vodafone site and News page. 

[Davidch]

Thanks for the reply. Is there any way of communicating to Vodafone that our rural area effectively loses mobile internet for most of the evening as a result of its careful monitoring of traffic and usage? Unfortunately, there seems to be no way of navigating the thicket of telephone or online support to reach anyone who understands the problem, much less is able to offer anything in the way of actual support.

[Effie]

Are you able to pop a message over to the Social Media Team and ask them to raise a Network Case for impacted and reduced speeds and connection in the area during evening hours? They will take some information from you and ask you to perform some speed tests during the impacted time frame. Then a case can be raised to the engineers to investigate. 

[Davidch]

Thank you. The link you posted leads to Facebook and Twitter. Is that correct? I have to discount live chat, as the operators don’t seem equipped to deal with this sort of query. I don’t use Facebook or Twitter but if this is really the only way of raising a Network Case, I will see what I can do. 

[Effie]

That's right @Davidch the Social Media team operate on Facebook, X (Formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Some of the information needed to raise a case is considered personal information which is why it isn't ideal for us to run all of the checks on this platform. Are you able to create a social media profile to just use for reaching out to the Social Media team at all? You can then delete the profile once the issue is resolved or you can keep it to just use whenever you need help with your Vodafone services. 

[Davidch]

I take it there is no other way of getting through to the engineers so I will give it a go. Thank you for your speedy responses.

[Effie]

Thanks @Davidch Please do send the Social team a link to this thread so they can see that I've advised you to contact them so a case can be raised. If you need any further help with this, please do let me know. 

[Davidch]

I doubt very much there is anything else to be done, but contacting the Social team on the media links you provided turned into a massive time-wasting exercise. Every single message I sent - even after a gap of only a few minutes - was replied to by a different person who clearly could not be bothered to read the thread. I have been through the details (and laboriously had to identify myself) more times than I can count. It was like trying to converse with someone with a 10-second memory. Eventually, someone claimed to have passed the matter on to an engineer. A week later I was told they hadn't done anything of the sort. I am still no nearer to knowing whether Vodafone slows down our mobile internet connection to a crawl every evening at 6 pm as a matter of cost-saving policy or because there is some sort of local fault. I don't suppose I will ever know; I am sorry to say that the company's customer service really is that bad.

[Gemma]

Hi @Davidch - I've just found the conversation on our Social platform and I've replied to you there. I'll also look into the points you've raised.