Vodafone 4G dropping connection overnight

[kbrownuk]

Hi 

I am based in Devon and use 4G for working from home as the BT Connection is so poor in my area. It has been working fine for many months and had fantastic download speeds in excess of 70mbps at most times however I am  finding that the connection drops overnight after midnight and needs to be rebooted in the morning (sometimes more than once ) to get restored. I am using an external antenna and have been in contact with the manufacturers to look into the issue but they are saying the problem is with the vodafone network.

If the router is not rebooted in the morning it does sometimes return on its own without any intervention.

Vodafone network status is not showing any issues but I am convinced this is some sort of bandwidth management or energy saving attempt on the mast outside of peak times. 

I use multiple sites and have seen this at most locations.

Is anyone else seeing this problem recently from about november 22 onwards?

[colinstone]

I've being seeing something very similar in Oxford where our home broadband is from the network as a mobile hotspot. The nearest mast OX2 0DP is 500m away.  My phone will show a 5 bar signal strength and the 4G data will randomly just stop.  Thursday night streaming Apple TV was fine, last night the data just stopped for around 10mins at about 2130 with 5 bar signal. The network speed checker just failed. Nothing has been changed on the phone and in Europe it has been fine running a hotspot since I got the phone in autumn 2001.  The Vodafone app needs improving and the speed checker should record the failures as well as the successful checks.

The OX2ODP mast was under maintenance Aug 23 to Feb 24, apparently having 3G gear removed and 5G installed by Nokia. Why it took so long, The signal strength was down and data pretty random, almost as if it was being turned on at 0900 and off at 1700.  Vodafone were unable to explain why it was taking so long. I visited the cabinet and its door was left open for days on end, even over Christmas. I could read Huawei labels on the boxes. 

[ARH1950]

Leaving a door open in winter doesn't sound like a very good idea!

It seems clear that the issue of internet connectivity dropping off just on midnight is being experienced by a number of us in this thread, all the way from Shetland down to south west England.  Indeed it happened to me again last night, at exactly midnight.  As far as I've been able to determine, the router still receives a solid 4G signal (three bars out of three) but the internet connection is missing.  There must be someone in Vodafone's engineering teams who know what's going on here and if any of them are reading this, I hope they can intervene.  I'm beginning to sense a parallel here with the saga of Fujitsu and the Post Office: we are telling you there's a problem, and would hope you can be open about it and find a solution. 

[Mimi12345]

Hi, I am Ami Victoria I couldn’t reply to my response however will tell you that I was shot down and called a liar by people on this site that don’t even work for vodaphone for expressing this issues and saying it isn’t just me to then be told to contact someone who worked in vodaphone, I called vodaphone directly  and was told there isnt and hasn’t been anything wrong with their connection in my area and to call them when it happens,  so I waited until the usual midnight (as I was working) and low and behold no one to talk to me about it, just being fobbed off good luck I even got talked into buying a SIM card with quicker speeds to help solve part of my problem! Still just as bad 

[Kate31cook]

I think this must be something to do with maintenance and they’re not coming clean about it.  I live in remote Somerset with no cable broadband that’s of any use, so I use a huawei 4g gigacube and an outdoor zyxel router - like that have in remote ski resorts - running off Vodafone 4g, so I know it should work no problem, which it does during the day.  I have the entire house running on it, but after midnight, zippo, no signal at all. It’s just not on Vodafone! And the irony is, I can’t contact Vodafone without the wifi because I have no signal to make a call or access the app. Frustrating!  
if anyone gets to the bottom of this, please let me know….thanks 

[ARH1950]

Yes, it must be some sort of maintenance procedure.  I did briefly wonder if Huawei routers were pausing to dump all our data back to China but that seems a little unlikely!

I'm tempted to take this up with one of the various media consumer champions - the Guardian and Observer ones seem to be quite effective.

[ARH1950]

Thanks Ami Victoria.  Fobbing off seems to be Vodafone's default response.  My connection went off again at exactly midnight last night.  They must surely know why this is happening.

[Mimi12345]

Apparently it’s not happening, I’m imagining it by all accounts. If you find some resolve please do let me know 

[ARH1950]

I will.  You're not imagining it!  But I'm not optimistic about achieving a solution without a complaint elsewhere, possibly to Ofcom or in the press.  That may have to be the next step.  (Anyone at Vodafone reading this will, I still hope, intervene.)

[colinstone]

As the Vf app doesn't save failed network speed checks, I think the only way to get some proof is to screenshot the app showing the speed check fail. 

[Mimi12345]

It doesn’t load as without the internet being on I can’t see the app 😾