Huge reduction in 4G speed over last month or so

[pafos]

Hello

Firstly I am an Electronics Engineer and have used Vodafone for very many  years . I use 4G for both phone and Internet via dedicated 4g routers and external aerial and get 100% signal strength. I pay monthly for fastest speeds and until recently I would get 18-24 Mbs reliably. Now that has reduced down to under 8Mbs and occasionally  get to 13Mbs usually at night.. I have several devices and all suffer the problem as do my neighbours. Now, I live in a very rural area, hence the external aerial  (EX21 5EA) so is this issue Covid related as there must be a huge increase in data traffic and streaming causing a reduction in bandwidth and can   anything be done. These current data speed are frankly unusable for my  business but Airband are now delivering Wireless broadband in my area and offering 40Mbs at the same sort of   prices as Vodafone so unless things improve I will definitely give them a try. 

[Farai]

Hey @pafos I've just had a quick look at the area and it doesn't look like there are currently any on going issues there. We'd love to help you investigate further. So we can get the ball rolling, please drop us a message on our social channels here and we can collect some additional information from you securely, then raise this to our Technical team if needs be 👍

[pafos]

HI Thanks for reply however your link to social channels does not work get error "Invalid Parameters Specified"

Peter

[Farai]

Please try clearing the cache and cookies on the browser you're using and try the link once more for us @pafos 👍

[pafos]

Bit of a delay in replying but I contacted your team via facebook and explained issues. According to them the network was fine  but having looked at the mast data they told me that that single mast covered a very large rural area and it was "overcrowded"  hence speed reduction which was no real help So I tried an o2 Sim as I get a good signal and then I got 23-28 Mbs i.e 4 times faster so when my contract ends in a few months I will be joining o2 as I am paying top end for poor service these days. It never used to be like this.

Thanks for your help anyway.

Cheers

[Mark]

Hey @pafos, I've taken another look into the postcode provided in your earlier message (EX21 5EA). I can see this is quite a rural area and the service we offer is a little patchy. However I can see we do provide a strong 4G service at this postcode. I've checked the mast serving you and although this further away than we'd like, it's working as expected and has experienced no recent outages, so I would expect the service level to have been maintained. Obviously there can be outside influences that affect the quality of the service you receive and this maybe the case here, but if you'd like us to raise this for further investigation by one of our Network specialists, reply to our last message in the conversation you were having with us on Twitter/Facebook.

[pafos]

HI Mark 

Appreciate the reply. The problem is Vodafone nothing else. Too many people on one mast Pop in an o2 SIM problem gone. O2 use same mast as well. Sorry but will be going elsewhere as paying for inferior connections that used to be very good. Kind regards