Mobile Broadband speed reduction since last week

[dwizzo]

Morning all

While we are in a good 5g area (CR5 3EZ), supposedly our gigacube connects to the only mast that does not have it...go figure. We do get aggregated 4g (4g+) which has seen speeds typically running between 50-90 download and 40-70 upload...until last Friday. Since then, speeds have pretty much halved, meaning download 50 at best at 6am and dropping down to repeated buffering and restarting router each night. 

I appreciate that the speeds are still not bad, but it is bad enough the gigacube will not ether to any 5g mast...the one I can see quite clearly from our house around 1k away...but to now have speed halved from where it has been for some considerable time is very tedious indeed. 

I have checked network status and nothing showing up there. We have not changed router position, any settings etc so no idea why this has happened since last Friday (5th March). As you can see from the pic, the volatility in the download / upload is just nuts and that massive spike in download chart probably saved the average from being somewhat lower.

Any help much appreciated...waiting for the click this link to speak to tech people on Twitter!

Ta

Dan

[dwizzo]

One more thing, mast we are connected to is 11698 if you need to check directly for any issues, with cell number 2994712.

Ta

Dan

[Evie]

Hey there @dwizzo - Thank you for giving us all that info, it's really helpful when it comes to us investigating this 😊

Could you complete our initial network checks template please then pop that over? Also, I'm sure you've already tried them, but here are some additional troubleshooting steps and advice on what could effecting your Gigacubes speeds.

Do you have any mobile phones on the Vodafone network?

[dwizzo]

Evie, thanks for coming back. Had a long session with tech people yesterday but came to no real resolution as to why things had changed. However, what I have noticed today is that it seems to be down to 4g band selecting by the router. When it is is auto (default) the connection is all over the place from no connection to near expected speed but flip-flopping every few seconds. However, when I use an app (huactrl...yes, I know not supported by VF but this is saving us now) and force the router to just use band 20 then everything goes stable. Last week we were on bands 20 and 1 aggregating (to get 4g+ and theoretically better speed) but as with auto, if I set to that now, connection loses the plot. The tech person yesterday said we were connected to mast 31517 so I wonder if you can ask for this to be checked as something odd seems to have been happening to it since late last week...and is still impacting now.

Thanks

Dan

[Beth]

Hi @dwizzo! I've taken a look at the postcode you've provided above (CR5 3EZ) and the coverage is reflecting as good indoors and outdoors for 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G. You connect to mast no. 87865 for 2G and 5G services, whilst you connect to mast no. 31517 for 3G and 4G services. There was some downtime on 87865 last Friday at 3am however, this was quickly resolved and there has been no downtime since. There has been no maintenance or downtime on 31517 for the last week. 

If you can pop over the completed template that @Evie has sent a link to above and post it here, we'll be able to continue investigating with you 🙂

[dwizzo]

1) Does the issue happen in just one location? If so, how far do you have to travel to regain service?

This is to do with gigacube, so just home location

2) What is the full postcode (e.g. ST1 1AA) of where the issue occurs? If you don't want this showing on the Community, add it to your profile here.

 CR5 3EZ

3) Does the issue occur if you try your SIM card in a different phone?

 Yes. Put gigacube some in iPhone 11 and get same variance of signal / speeds

4) What errors are seen or heard when the issue occurs?

 As detailed above, issue occurs when gigacube set to default for band / signal connection. Until last Friday (5th), there was no issue when we had “locked” gigacube (with huactrl...yes, we know it is not supported, but does a great job) to bands 1 and 20...but since then we get massive variance in signal with this Friday (12th) connection just going blank in the afternoon. Only resolution we have found is to lock gigacube to band 1 (apologies I said band 20 in post above). This now gives us far more stable connection, even if slightly lower than when aggregating 1 and 20 previously (when I worked). 

5) Does this happen on 2G, 3G, 4G or all?

   While network status (and you!) state we have good 5g in and out...we don’t...never connected even though that mast is only about another 200m further away with a clear line of sight than mast 31517...where signal has to come through trees and houses...go figure! As such, just a 4g issue.

6) When did you first notice this issue?

 Friday 5th March

7) Is the issue permanent or intermittent? If intermittent, are there certain times of the day when it occurs?

seemingly permanent...every time I switch back to default or to try to aggregate band 20 with band 1 signal goes pretty much unusable...ie half what we had and then so volatile as well

Look forward to hearing what you think we can do. For reference, tech person suggested we should buy an external aerial...but given we should have strong signal across 2g through to 5g (if only!) then I am loathed to have to spend more when your service indicator suggest we should have no issues at all in connecting and getting a great signal all the way to 5g!

While 4g on band 1 only is working for now, something has seemingly happened which then means we have to use an app like huactrl to actually make the whole service workable. Not great really. 

Dan

[Andy]

Hi @dwizzo 👋 Thanks for the information above, I have taken a closer look and can see there has been some downtime today on mast 87865 but I would not expect this to be causing the level of issues you are facing, we will need to raise a network case for this to investigated by the network team, to do this we need to take just a few more details from you which we can`t take here, if you could contact us through this link and when starting a conversation pop the link to this thread in there, as most of the information is already here required to raise the case, our network team will then be able to investigate this further.

[dwizzo]

Andy, thanks for coming back. Will follow instructions to post up to Twitter, but did contact them last Thursday and they have yet to respond! I spoke to one of the tech team on the phone (as detailed above) but that did not seem to get anywhere. Maybe with the extra info on bands something may happen. Final question is related to reply from Beth above, who said we got 2g / 5g from mast 87865 and 3G / 4g from mast 31517. We get no 5g at all...so have I misunderstood what she was saying?

Ta

Dan

[Andy]

Hi again @dwizzo I am surprised that you have not had a response, I believe the message may have been missed and I apologise if that is the case, if you pop over another one I am sure this will get picked up, what Beth was saying is the mast 87865 we would expect to be providing your 2G and 5G services and mast 31517 we would expect to provide you with 4G and 3G as this mast does not have 5G available currently. The fact that you are not receiving 5G at all needs investigating, especially as you have seen a deterioration in service. I hope that makes sense 😊

[dwizzo]

Andy, does now! Apologies, I may have done the Twitter team a disservice. Looks like they may have come back but I missed it! Anyhow...let’s hope for something positive this time...especially if they can sort 5g