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.

===========

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.

[PedroC1999]

Thanks all, I'll pass on from my direction

[sappercaptain]

For info.  If Vodafone asks you to submit details to engineering you can expect to have to go through these questions, not a customer friendly process:

To help with your query, we need to access your account. Click [Removed]   to send our details through to my team. Make sure you click the link to send us your details as we’re unable to respond to private messages.

Your code is: Xxxxx

Please include:

• Forum Username
• Link to your post 
• Mobile Number
• Full Address including postcode of affected area
• Alternative contact number
• The type of issue being reported (service type, coverage/voice/data/SMS etc)
• What are the symptoms being reported (please give as much information as possible)
• Issue start date and time
• Make and model of phone

• Specific examples of dates and times

of failures, from the last 24 hours

Remember to include any additional information that will help us resolve your query.

There’s a character limit of 2500 and the page will time out, so you may want to draft your query elsewhere first, and then paste it into the text box.

[MOD EDIT: This post has been edited to remove inappropriate content please see Community Guidelines]

[Gemma]

@sappercaptain - I’ve searched for your email via the address you’ve registered to the Community with and nothing’s showing. It doesn’t sound like we’ve received it. We do want to help.

For us to investigate this further, we’ll need some details from you that can’t be shared publically. I’ve sent another send private message. to you. Please follow the steps with how to do this.

[sappercaptain]

Thanks Gemma,

As per my PM, this has gone on long enough and I have put in many hours to try and help you to help us (the people of Winchester).

This is now a commercial issue as Vodafone is not complying with the Consumer Rights Act 2015, which states that services should be carried out with reasonable skill and care.  All affected users are entitled to seek reasonable compensation for the lack of service (like O2 users have been promised).

I urge other affected users to pursue this avenue as there is nothing like having to cough up money to focus the engineering minds...

[Mark]

If you've emailed us using the link @Gemma provided @sappercaptain, please let us know the case ref (looks like [#11234567]) from the auto response you received and we'll be happy to follow this up for you.

[sappercaptain]

No auto response was ever received.  As explained before there is little in the engineering form that isn’t already in this thread so I don’t plan to complete it again.

Please instead provide the contact details for the team that can provide refunds per my previous post.

[PedroC1999]

The site has both LTE carriers radiating and carrying traffic but the network load is very very high. 

The full swap out is a high priority.

[sappercaptain]

I have no idea what this means... when will the good bergers of Winchester start to be able to use data services again (like we could every year until 2017) please?

attached today’s speed test which shows 2mb/s download and virtually nothing upload.

[highpriest]

---

@PedroC1999 wrote:

The site has both LTE carriers radiating and carrying traffic but the network load is very very high. 

The full swap out is a high priority.

---

Would you happen to know when this is likely to happen?

So what work was recently completed and why has it not made any difference?

Thanks for keeping us updated btw. It is really appreciated. This is the sort of thing Vodafone will never tell us. The mods just ask us to fill pointless forms.

[sappercaptain]

@PedroC1999, I’m so sorry, I assumed you were a Vodafoner, thanks for your help!