SO23 - Winchester

[highpriest]

Anyone else in SO22/SO23 Winchester experiencing extremely poor 4G speeds? I've been struggling for months with poor 4G speeds in Winchester (in the city centre mainly). Contacted Vodafone via Twitter - no help at all. Contacted CS and I've gone through every single troubleshooting technique (reset network settings, change APN, re-register sim with network, etc. etc.) in the book and nothing has helped.

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

SO22 (home) less affected, SO23 (work) is particularly bad. If I move outside of Winchester City Centre (even just a few miles), 4G data speeds can jump to as much as 50 Mbps down, 20 Mbps up.

2) What is the full postcode (e.g. ST1 1AA) of where the issue occurs?

SO23 8US

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

Yes.

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

Phone shows full 4G signal. Calls are unaffected but data speeds are extremely poor. There's quite a bit of variation, but speeds could be as low as 250 Kbps and sometimes between 1-2 Mbps. Upload speeds are not affected to the same degree. Speed tests show 4 or 5 Mbps upload.

Sometimes it is so bad that the speed test app will fail to even locate a server to run a speed test against and just give up.

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

Not tried 2G or 3G (and don't ask me to). Problem is with 4G.

6) When did you first notice this issue?

A few months ago (Q3 2017).

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

Permanent. Data speeds range from non-existent to ultra-slow. Everything buffers constantly or just times out and gives up.

I use an iPhone 8 Plus.

[sappercaptain]

Thanks Alex.  I have looked at your link and can’t see any way of getting alerts.  Perhaps you could provide and expected timeline for a fix.

[Shane88]

Same issue here in Milton Keynes. We have a full 4G coverage but can't use data. There is clearly a big issue here but nobody is fixing it and customer services are unaware of any issue. 

this needs to be fixed. Something is majorly wrong Vodafone!! 

[Strowger]

I've just received a text message from Vodafone saying "Hello. Just to let you know that there is maintenance scheduled on our mobile network in SO23xxx between 28/11/2019 and 29/11/2019 - please accept our apologies if you experience any trouble with your service. We will update you once the maintenance is completed. Thanks for your patience."

So perhaps that might help things? Fingers crossed!

[highpriest]

Yeah I got the text as well. No idea if this is to fix a fault or if it's a planned upgrade. One can only hope that things will improve as it cannot possibly get any worse.

Today was diabolically bad. There was ZERO data coverage in the city centre today - not even the usual pathetic 100 kbps 1990s internet I usually get.

That's YouTube telling me that I'm not on the internet. Which is accurate if your carrier is Vodafone. Absolutely pathetic.

[sappercaptain]

Here is the update I got after persisting a bit on Messenger:

Thanks for your patience Mike.

Our Engineers have updated us and let us know that they've scheduled some maintenance work on your site to help improve things for you. This is scheduled to take place on 28 November - I'd like to make you aware that this can be subject to change due to factors such as weather or requesting permission to access the site.

Once this begins, it will show on our network status checker here: http://vodafone.uk/nsc which I'd advise using to monitor for the latest update on the work they'll be carrying out.

Should you find that things haven't improved for you by 1 December (as it can take a few days for the site to settle following any improvements) please pop us another message and we'll look into this further for you. Tash

[sappercaptain]

I don't want to raise anyone's hopes prematurely, but I just ran this speed test....

could it be, that after 18+months of raising this issue it's finally fixed??

[Strowger]

As I live in SO23, most of my time I am normally connected to my home wi-fi and don't notice the 4G speeds.

This evening I had some time to spare in a pub near the city centre, and my connection speed was woeful.

Running Speedtest (when it would actually connect) gave me 0.22Mbps down and 0.07Mbps up.

Is there a known problem in Winchester (the Network Checker doesn't show one) or are we still waiting to be upgrraded???

[Tash]

@Strowger It looks like we've recently completed work in the area as of yesterday evening (you may need to zoom out on our network status checker before this appears). Does restarting your phone improve things for you?

[Strowger]

@Natasha - thank you for the response. Unfortunately, I've just tried again (after rebooting my handset) and I'm getting 2.13Mpbs down and 0.47Mbps up on 4G, so not what I would expect if it was working correctly...

[sappercaptain]

Good luck with this conversation....it took 18 months for Vodafone to believe us and implement a fix last time.  18 months of, is it the same in a different handset, reset your phone, check your internet settings, stand on your head and count to ten etc....!