S10 Sheffield - Severe packet loss on 4G

[kocz]

I live in S104LD, and have been receiving extremely poor packet loss over the last few days. It seems to occur around 4PM every day, lasting until the next morning, though it's still not perfect before then. I dont believe this is local as others have been complaining about the same experience on another mobile broadband forum.

Download speeds are a constant 130 Mb/s down and 30 Mb/s up, so no problem there... Yet websites hang for 5-10 seconds, videos continually buffer, and Teams/VOIP calls are impossible.

Here's a ping test to BBC's servers:

Ping statistics for 151.101.192.81:
    Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 33, Lost = 17 (34% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 27ms, Maximum = 42ms, Average = 30ms

Here's a ping test to one of the nearby hops (outside of my network, but before leaving vodafone's exchange). Notice how there's no packet loss:

Ping statistics for 192.168.213.21:
    Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 50, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 25ms, Maximum = 32ms, Average = 27ms

Here's a tracert to bbc:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.1             <-- My router
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.      <-- Presumably the mast
  3    27 ms    27 ms    23 ms  192.168.213.21          <-- Pings fine without packet loss
  4    26 ms    29 ms    28 ms  192.168.213.22
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7    29 ms     *        *     63.130.172.41
  8    28 ms     *       30 ms  90.255.251.107
  9    31 ms    31 ms    29 ms  151.101.0.81

[adamjey]

Definitely not local. I live in a building with no fibre in BB postcode, so have to use 4G mobile internet. Recently the packet loss has been absolutely ridiculous, mine starts at around 1-2pm every day and lasts until close to midnight. Previously used to peak up between 6pm-10pm making online games impossible to play but now starts much earlier in the afternoon meaning work is also becoming an issue.

I use this connection for client & internal meetings over MS teams (which causes lots of cutout/lag) and any streaming/video playing/complex website loading is frustratingly slow.

I get 10-15% packet loss during the afternoons peaking at 35-40% in the evenings. Totally unacceptable.

[adamjey]

For some reference points, these are all taken at approx. 3pm on Tuesday 6th Dec:

4G Mobile Router (wired connection between router & PC):

4G Mobile Phone (Pixel 4a) (separate SIM card, same network):

Different mobile (iPhone 12) on competitor network (BT):

Latency on BT phone is higher due to VPN routing for work.

Ridiculous how much worse Vodafone is performing at the same time, at the exact same physical location as their competitors.

[Andy]

Hi @kocz 👋 This is certainly something that we may need to raise with our network team, if this continues to be an issue, please contact our social team via this link and we can look at raising this to them.

[kocz]

Are you not able to forward this information to the relevant technical department? It's been the worst it's ever been tonight.

[Effie]

We need some information from your account in order for us to raise your case as an example to the team @kocz and since we have no account access on the community, we need you to contact the Social Media team so this can be done. 

[kocz]

Unfortunately I'm with Lebara (MVNO of VF) so I'm unable to make a direct complaint through Vodafone. However many others on a public forum are complaining of the same experience, some reporting that it's happening with Vodafone and VOXI so I would suspect a network-wide issue.

I can provide some diagnostic information if you can provide me with an email address to send them to.

[Gemma]

@kocz - thanks for offering to provide additional information. So that the right troubleshooting can be completed, please reach out to Lebara.

[kocz]

I have done so, though they've been less than helpful... most Lebara support reps I've spoken to aren't even familiar with the term, and I never heard back.

I understand that it's not your or Vodafone's responsibility to provide support to me as I am not a direct customer, but many others on the ISPreview forums have been experiencing similar problems with Vodafone, including VF and VOXI SIMs. I'm not able to personally state whether this applies to my situation as I only have Lebara SIMs, but it's clear there's an issue of some kind.

From my own diagnostic tests, the packet loss appears to be occurring when they hop from 192.168.213.21 to 192.168.213.22. If these addresses are part of the VF network and not just Lebara-specific routing, then I would advise you pass this information on to the technical team.

[Mark]

Thank for providing this information @kocz. As you're a Lebara customer, you'll need to speak to them directly regarding your issues. You can reach them via the link @Gemma provided.