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.

[Strowger]

The Hampshire Chronicle have certainly been reporting that the recently replaced mast on Bereweeke Road/Andover Road is dual use by Vodafone and O2.

I didn't think to do a speed test when I had 5G showing, but the signal was just 1 bar (much as I get on 4G most of the time). When I'm at home, most of the time my phones selects calls-over-wifi rather than 4G.

[highpriest]

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@sappercaptain wrote:

3 and 4G remain miserably slow, to the point of not even being able to run speed tests.

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Or as Vodafone would call it: "There are no service problems reported in your area." 😁

[Strowger]

Saw 5G intermittently again at home this morning. Also did a (4G) SpeedTest, which gave me 15.7Mbps Down and 5.40Mbps Up (which is a big improvement on previous reading of around 0.5 Down and 0.1 Up.

Next time I'm outside the Vodafone shop on the High Street (my usual SpeedTest location) I'll see what I get.

[sappercaptain]

Hi there. Long time!

I see Vodafone plans to switch off 3G data soon. Does anyone in Winchester on Vodafone have reliable access to 4G service yet? My fear is that we will go from shockingly poor data service to no service at all for much of the city.

[Strowger]

Not me - I'm still in the "shockingly poor" category.

[highpriest]

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@sappercaptain wrote:

Hi there. Long time!

I see Vodafone plans to switch off 3G data soon. Does anyone in Winchester on Vodafone have reliable access to 4G service yet? My fear is that we will go from shockingly poor data service to no service at all for much of the city.

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It has been a while! I read about it yesterday. The article in ISP Review says:

In the case of Vodafone, the operator has today stated that their national shutdown will happen in phases throughout the remainder of 2023, starting in June with Hull, Oxford and Greater London, before progressing across the South. The remainder of the UK will follow later in the year.

Also:

On the technical front, the change will enable some 10MHz of spectrum in their 900MHz band to be re-purposed for use by modern 4G and 5G mobile services, which could result in faster mobile broadband speeds and better network coverage from those platforms.

I don't think they will just turn off 3G (especially in Winchester) without first improving 4G coverage. Or, the 3G switch-off might bring about an improvement in the 4G signal strength and speeds (after the fact).

But it is Vodafone we are talking about, and we are in Winchester, so chances are, it will probably only get worse.

Where I live (Badger Farm), I sometimes only get 3G so unless they bring about some serious improvements, I will be left with even poorer data coverage.

Some parts seem to have much better coverage though. This is a speed test I ran near Tesco in Winnall:

https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/i/5596088306

But as ever, move a few hundred metres and suddenly you have nothing. So many places now have fast and reliable 5G coverage, why can't we have the nice things?

[sappercaptain]

Thanks for the reply.

im wondering if there might be something in the settings of my iPhone preventing it from preferring 4G as it defaults the 3G through most of Winchester for me. I certainly don’t get the high speeds you experienced out in Winnall (but not been for a while I have to admit), was it 5G?

[highpriest]

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@sappercaptain wrote:

Thanks for the reply.

im wondering if there might be something in the settings of my iPhone preventing it from preferring 4G as it defaults the 3G through most of Winchester for me. I certainly don’t get the high speeds you experienced out in Winnall (but not been for a while I have to admit), was it 5G?

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That was on 4G, would you believe it! I was sat in the car going through the IMO car wash 😀

I could be wrong but I don't think you can configure that on an iPhone (always prefer 4G over 3G). I use an iPhone as well.

[sappercaptain]

….and just like that, we have 5G in Winchester!!

[highpriest]

Nice! Which location? Nothing in Badger Farm yet.

Had a look at the coverage map - looks like only a small area is covered at the moment.