No/Impossibly slow data throughput Gatwick Airport (RH6 0NX)

[milesharrison]

Constantly have 3/4 bars of 4g in multiple (most) areas of Gatwick airport. I will get zero or very slow data throughput. It is too slow to send a whatsapp message in most locations. A speed test will either not start or indicate something absurd like 2.5kbps. Web pages simply will not load.

It's clearly some sort of congestion or interference issue. I've tried it in 3 different handsets (iphone 12 and 2x 13's) and colleagues report the same issue.

I have reported it to the web chat and they've been little help. This has been occuring since approx april/may this year. In locations where I get 5g at the airport, it mostly works well. Vodafone keep sending me messages about maintenance work starting/finishing and it is no different. 

RH6 0NX is probably the worst location.

[milesharrison]

Speedtest.net wont load. It would take upto a minute  before any of these speedtests would actually start.

  - 17th September

 - 18th September  (5G BLAZING FAST!)

 - 20th September

 - 21st September

   

[PayMCD]

Since this is an extremely busy location, there is likely to be a lower quality of data service. Generally speaking, you should still receive a basic level of speed, which is anything above 2Mbps. 

Especially with the location being prone to interference and a limited network infrastructure, it is likely that service is expected to fluctuate.

Please click here to ensure you've completed the required information for a network issue and one of the forum team will look into this further for you.

[milesharrison]

1) Does the issue happen in just one location? If so, how far do you have to travel to regain service?
All around the North Terminal at Gatwick Airport (my place of work/base)

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.
RH6 0NX

3) Does the issue occur if you try your SIM card in a different phone?
Yes, tried 3 different iphone 12/13s

4) What errors are seen or heard when the issue occurs?
A website page won't load, if I do manage to get a speed test running, the speed is pathetic and unusable. It's often completely unresposnive and won't even send a text only whatsapp message.

5) Does this happen on 2G, 3G, 4G or all?
4G seems the biggest issue. 3G never connects as 4G is available with good signal strength. If 5G is available, it is better, but not perfect. It's either a congestion issue or some interference on the 4G frequencies.

6) When did you first notice this issue?
May 2022

7) Is the issue permanent or intermittent? If intermittent, are there certain times of the day when it occurs?
Constant. I mostly arrive at work at 12-3pm and leave between 12-3am though am away from the location inbetween (flying).

[Effie]

Hey @milesharrison I hope you're well! As @PayMCD mentioned, the area is prone to much higher than usual levels of network traffic and therefore congestion. I've checked the postcode and the surrounding area and there are currently no issues, outages or ongoing maintenance works in progress. 

All of the masts in the area are working as we expect them too. Unfortunately due to the busy nature of airports and railway stations, we do expect there to be slower than expected speeds and connection disruption in these places; this is something we hope to improve as we improve the quality and capacity of the network. 

[milesharrison]

Yeah, that's not going to work for me.  What they said above was"Generally speaking, you should still receive a basic level of speed, which is anything above 2Mbps".  I'm not getting a tenth of that and most of the time it doesn't work at all.

Video of the data not working at all despite FULL 4G signal. 

I have an EE sim in my company device and rarely get less than 100mbit and impeccable service. Your coverage checker states good signal indoor and outdoor on 4g. If it's too busy to provide even a basic service, how can it declare it as 'good'? 

If you can't provide me the service (I'm paying approx £90 a month for), I will need a better solution. Vodafone is the problem, not the busy nature of airports and railway stations given the alternative networks work just fine.

If it can't be escalated on a network level (despite it being a network problem), please advise how I can escalate it on a customer service one?

[AnnS]

If you are receiving the message 'Safari cannot open this page because it cannot establish a secure connection to the server' with a full 4G signal this won't be a network issue @milesharrison and will be down to the Safari security settings.

There are some threads on Apple Community on this subject with ideas on how to solve the problem.  A Google search will bring up the results.  A recommendation is to clear your browser history and cache.

[milesharrison]

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@AnnS wrote:

If you are receiving the message 'Safari cannot open this page because it cannot establish a secure connection to the server' with a full 4G signal this won't be a network issue @milesharrison and will be down to the Safari security settings.

No, if it works fine in one location but doesn't in another, it is a network issue. I haven't changed the settings inbetween. The error message is most likely due to a corrupted SSL certificate which would form the initial transaction trying to get the page and the data being interrupted either due to a timeout or me refreshing (with another time out).

@Mark wrote:

 I can understand how frustrating experiencing difficulty to connect can be @milesharrison. Just to let you know, it's the nature of all mobile networks during congestion and peak hours to prioritise customers voice calls to maintain audio quality at the expense of data traffic. This also allows any calls to emergency services to be connected without delay. From the information you've provided, it sounds like this may be the case here. If you'd like us to continue investigating this for you, we'll be more than happy to do so. I can see from your earlier post that this issue occurs when you try you SIM in multiple devices. To help us eliminate this from our investigation, we'll need you to try replacing your SIM. You can do this by visiting any Vodafone store, picking up a SIM and activating it against your number. If you're still unable to connect after doing this, please post us a screenshot of a completed speed test. Once we have this we'll be able to help you further.

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I have replaced the sim, this is actually about my 5th. I have shared 4 screenshots of speed tests above on the rare occasions it works enough to do one. It's not the nature of all mobile phone networks to just not work for hours a day, EE and Three work fine in that location at all times. Are you saying that during peak time (which at an airport is all the time), Vodafone won't be able to supply the second largest airport with mobile data so people can make phone calls? This is preposterous. I really don't think you're responding to the problem here.

What do you suggest?

[Mark]

I can assure you @milesharrison all networks will have a traffic management policy to help prioritise certain services if the network experiences congestion at any time. Looking at the speed tests you've provided. It appears these are almost a week old we'll need a completed test taken in the last 24 hours through the site linked in my previous message. When you take the screenshot, please ensure the time the shot was taken is included.

Once we have this we'll be able to offer more assistance.

[Mark]

 I can understand how frustrating experiencing difficulty to connect can be @milesharrison. Just to let you know, it's the nature of all mobile networks during congestion and peak hours to prioritise customers voice calls to maintain audio quality at the expense of data traffic. This also allows any calls to emergency services to be connected without delay. From the information you've provided, it sounds like this may be the case here. If you'd like us to continue investigating this for you, we'll be more than happy to do so. I can see from your earlier post that this issue occurs when you try you SIM in multiple devices. To help us eliminate this from our investigation, we'll need you to try replacing your SIM. You can do this by visiting any Vodafone store, picking up a SIM and activating it against your number. If you're still unable to connect after doing this, please post us a screenshot of a completed speed test. Once we have this we'll be able to help you further.