High Packet Loss in the Evening Only

[dncan29]

I've been having periodic packet loss for the last month or so at very specific times in the evening, and am at a bit of a loss on what to do.

To start off I'll explain that I live in a remote area, so I use a mobile SIM in a TP-Link router for household internet. The phone mast is quite literally at the bottom of the garden, so I've always had a very strong signal and quite fast speeds - enough for gaming and streaming simultaneously. I also have a number of smart devices around my home, including several Google Home devices and smart switches. Never had any issues in nearly 2 years with this setup.

Beginning at the start of December 2022, I noticed that I was getting very high packet loss (up to 30%, with higher spikes) while playing online. At these times my wife also noticed that YouTube, Netflix and iPlayer were buffering regularly or playing at low quality. We assumed at first that it would just be a temporary glitch, and left it at that.

After a few more nights I started investigating further. To start off I tried disconnecting our wifi boosters - no change. Resetting the router - no change. Comparing wired (PC) and wireless connections no  difference. After resetting everything and even trying the hotspot on my phone, I gave up. Give it a couple of weeks, I thought. It's the Christmas holidays, maybe the lines are just busier than usual.

Come January and with no further change, I used pingplotter to test our connection over a few days and the results have been quite interesting:

This is an example taken over a 48 hour period. My latency (black line) is very stable. The red bars show packet loss. What's interesting here is that every day, at 15:00 on the dot, the packet loss starts to rise. It peaks and drops again at 19:00, then rises sharply throughout the evening before tailing back to zero at 23:00.

This cycle repeats every day, without fail, near enough to the minute. And it's exactly the same whether I'm on a wired or wireless connection, and is also the same using the hotspot on my phone (and we've tried this with 2 different Vodafone SIMs).

Surely this must be some technical glitch on Vodafone's end? As I mentioned it only started beginning of December 2022, but the connection is unusable for gaming in the evening and streaming is also slow.

Is there anything more that can be done?

Thanks for any help

[Izode]

Absolutely, I thought I was going mad at first but I had a day off work sick last week so I got use the internet during the day and taking measurements could clearly see the variation in packet-loss. Vodafone's response to this issue has been disgusting with no one actually attempting to talk about the issue or admitting any fault in their systems when it is so obvious... now locked into a year of trash wifi I can't use when I get home after work The fact that the only thing nearing a solution in this channel is change network is so sad...

[dncan29]

This was my experience too. Even directing the support team to this thread with evidence of dozens if people with the same issue wasn't enough to get them to see eye-to-eye. Given enough attrition I'm sure they could be persuaded to waive an early contract termination fee, but it's an extra level of hassle that I could have done without. A whole year I had to put up with the packet loss, and switching out the SIMs fixed it instantly.

Incidentally, if anyone else in the same boat wants to switch to GiffGaff too (a good idea as they use the same masts as Vodafone, so will give you a good signal strength) DM me for a referral code.

[Izode]

Just gonna leave this here... peak packet loss approaching

[bpr]

Just an update, we gave up on Voda as the packet loss was affecting evening enjoyment of YouTube/other streaming too much. Moved to Three and although it's a lot slower due to distance from the mast, there's now no packet loss issues and we can stream/game again

I really wanted to stay with Vodafone but they simply don't care to acknowledge this fault so I'd say save yourself some stress and move to another network if you can.

[Lynxthecat]

I am back to seeing huge packet loss in the evenings again now:

[Lynxthecat]

I am back to seeing huge packet loss in the evenings again now:

Very frustrating!

[Janey]

Hi @Lynxthecat It's disappointing to see your network issue have returned. We'd be more than to take a look into this for you, please could you drop our team a message on one of our social channels found here. Hopefully, the team can get to the bottom of it! 

[Lynxthecat]

Looks like the issue got resolved in the meantime, at least for me. I'm curious if the others are still seeing packet loss in the evenings?

[Lee_Paul]

Hi Lynxthecat, I've just been reading through this post as I've also been suffering with awful packet loss in the evenings. This has been the case since I joined Vodafone from Three back in May. Just like you, my packet loss has magically disappeared over the last few weeks and I am now enjoying the service I should have been receiving from day one. 

It would be nice to hear if any others have also noticed their packet loss disappear, however, reading through all the posts it seems most of the people with the issue have quite rightly jumped ship. 

[dncan29]

It's such a shame because with a little more positive communication from Vodafone I'd have been more than happy to stick around. I'm on a rolling monthly contract now so I could easily go back to Vodafone at a moment's notice, however the way they've handled this issue over the course of the year means I don't think I could ever trust them with a long contract again.