Vodafone UK Refresh Home Broadband and Add Speed Guarantee
National ISP Vodafone has today announced that they are refreshing their range of fixed line home broadband packages, which among other things will see their old copper line ADSL packages being “retired” and the introduction of a minimum speed guarantee on their FTTC “fibre” services.
The new “Ultimate Speed Guarantee” means that customers who take the UK operator’s revised Superfast 1 (up to 38Mbps) or Superfast 2 (up to 76Mbps) packages, which use Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) technology, will benefit from a guaranteed minimum speed of 25Mbps and 55Mbps respectively (“sync speeds” to the router, not over wifi etc.). If they fail to deliver on speed, customers will be given a 15% discount (one per month until the issue is fixed), which can be claimed via the Vodafone HBB app.
A Spokesperson for Vodafone told ISPreview.co.uk:
“The best bit is, we’ve made it easy to claim – there are no clunky forms to fill in and no one to convince, if your speed is below the guarantee just open the Vodafone Broadband app and click the button if it’s below – and the discount is added. Simple as that. Even better, we’ll send a request to our triage team to look into your line and see if there is anything that we can do to fix it!
We will be the first UK provider to guarantee speeds across all of our packages.”
On top of that Vodafone has also simplified their packages and this appears to reflect a +50p to +£2 monthly price increase for some subscribers over the previously promoted options. As before, both of the packages include a wireless router (delivery is free but from 4th April 2018 it’s £9.99), unlimited usage, phone line rental, Parental Controls, six months of free F-Secure anti-virus software for up to 5 devices and an 18 month contract.
In addition, neither of the options requires you to pay a one-off setup fee for activation, although if you happen to need a brand new line installed then that may carry a £60 one-off installation cost. The new packages will become available from 1st March 2018 and we are currently waiting to see what T&C’s apply to the new guarantee.
Superfast 1 (up to 38Mbps)
Ultimate Speed Guarantee of 25Mbps
PRICE: £21 for Voda mobile customers (£23 for non-mobile customers)Superfast 2 (up to 76Mbps)
Ultimate Speed Guarantee of 55Mbps
PRICE: £26 for Voda mobile customers (£28 for non-mobile customers)
We should point out that BT also has a “speed guarantee” on their new FTTP and G.fast based ULTRAFAST broadband packages, which states that if the speed ever falls below 100Mbps then the ISP will give the customer £20 compensation (here).
Meanwhile Vodafone has also announced that they will be “retiring” their old 17Mbps capable “Unlimited Standard Broadband” (ADSL / ADSL2+) copper line package. In practice this only means that they will no longer be selling the service to new subscribers, while existing customers should continue to be supported.
Nick Jeffery, Vodafone UK CEO, said:
“Whether running a family or a small business, customers want guaranteed broadband speeds they can rely on. That’s why we are launching the ultimate speed guarantee. So whether it’s mum, dad and the kids streaming the latest blockbuster on movie night, or a small business owner videoconferencing with clients, they’ll be able to count on us.”
Separately Vodafone also informed us that “there are no current plans” to revisit the prospect of launching their own Pay TV service and that in 5 years’ time they hope to be “the UK’s leading fibre to the home [FTTH/P] service” (related to their deployment with Cityfibre). At this stage it’s a little too early to judge the viability of that, particularly given the growing competition, but Vodafone does have good form with FTTH in other countries.
UPDATE 10:59am
We note that Vodafone has also applied this change to their FTTC based small business packages for new and upgrading broadband customers only (note: the prices for these exclude VAT below):
• Essentials Superfast Broadband 1 (up to 38Mbps) guarantees a minimum speed of 25Mbps and costs from £17.50/month
• Essentials Superfast Broadband 2 (up to 76Mbps) guarantees a minimum broadband speed of 55Mbps and costs from £21.67/month
• Premium Superfast Broadband 1 (up to 38Mbps) guarantees a minimum broadband speed of 25Mbps and costs from £30.66/month
• Premium Superfast Broadband 2 (up to 76Mbps) guarantees a minimum broadband speed of 55Mbps and costs from £35.65/month
From 1st March 2018 until 3rd April 2018, there is no router delivery fee on the above business tiers, from 4th April 2018, a £9.99 delivery fee applies. A connection fee of £50 (exc. VAT) may also apply if the customer doesn’t currently have an Openreach line.
UPDATE 11:52am
One of our readers asked what happens if a new line is estimated to deliver below the minimum of 25Mbps. We were told this: “If a customer’s speed is below the 25Mbps threshold we will still accept the order, but we won’t apply the discount automatically – this is because the speeds from Openreach are estimates. As soon as the customer is up and running (and out of their 10 day stabilisation period), assuming their speed is below the 25Mbps threshold, they will be able to claim the discount via the Vodafone Home Broadband app.”
So in this case having a sub-25Mbps FTTC line might save you a little bit of money.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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What if a line can’t handle a minimum of 25Mbps? Will they refuse to provision?
Asking now.
Answered above.
Thanks for asking!
So Ive agreed to switch to vodafone on the 76Mb deal that ends today, the service wont start until March, do I benefit from any minimum performance guarantee?
Hi pete i am with vodafone speed never drops below 36meg am on (38) the only downfall is the router doesn’t give off the greatest signal but can’t grumble at £20 a month
Thanks Declan
My BT box is normally stating a 76Mb connection, even when speedtest & alike indicate a substandard 500Kb test, Ive only once had a speedtest give above 60mb once, I think living in a rural area I have to not expect city standards
“sync speeds from the router” does not guarantee throughput speed. You can be getting 75M Sync and 20M throughput if the exchange/node is congested. If the guarantee is only a SYNC speed guarantee it is a bit hollow.
If it’s like the new BT speed guarantee, it won’t be the sync speed, but instead it will be the speed from the modem/router to the internet(their speedtest site). Therefore it doesn’t include any drop you may get from bad wifi.
Here’s exactly what they say:
“We guarantee sync speeds, i.e. the speed to your home router, not the speed you see on your device. This is because the throughput speed is affected by many different factors, such as number of users, types of devices and where you position your router.“
If that’s the case, I wonder how many people will deliberately cause a bad sync just to get the discount?
I guess we will see tomorrow?
Though my guess is that either someone has got mixed up and said the sync speeds or they will only use the sync speeds for a while until they realize that people can fake the discount easily.
@jafs
A few chancers introducing faults on their lives will be hugely outnumbered by those who won’t know how to do it, and will likely be easy to spot. Using sync speed is a huge copout though. Those on busy exchanges may suffer slow internet access even though the sync speed is fast.
Concerning speed tests, how long will it be till public consensus converges on the fact its a test from the user to the Speedtest site and not the internet as a whole and is easily gamed by the isp?
“This is because the throughput speed is affected by many different factors, such as number of users, types of devices and where you position your router.” So even if you test your speed with the router connected at the master socket with only 1 device attached by Ethernet your throughput speed will not be accepted under the guarantee.
As I suspected, not worth the paper its printed on. Vodafone have congestion issues in quite a few areas. So users suffering this will not be covered by the guarantee as it only cover SYNC speed which to be honest is down to the distance from the cabinet and the quality of the copper between cabinet and premises.
Just a marketing exercise.
Real life throughput is 4 to 6 Mbit per second on Fibre 76. My Sync fault free speed is 68 Mbit/ sec. Vodafone Router can’t handle 3 devices simultaneously.
I’m not alone. Check Trustpilot.com
My router app reports 40mb even though my line has been confirmed to be only capable of a max 39mb , line tests frequently show as little as 1mb to Ethernet connected devices.
Over 10 hours of online chat with Vodafone gets me nowhere and the security features( parental control etc ) do not work at all , although set to tightest restrictions no sites are blocked.
When you say they are “retiring” ADSL, do you mean that they will no longer sell it, or that they will withdraw it from use? If the latter what happens if there is no FTTC available to migrate to? (I know there are currently areas, like mine, where they currently won’t provide any fixed line broadband anyway so maybe they won’t care about losing some customers).
Ah, sorry, just re-read the article, and you do say that existing customers will continue to be supported.
Yup this is the end of an era for copper lines, Uk is embracing FTTC and FTTP fibre connections for our internet infrastructure onwards.
@Moses
FTTC is still copper wiring. It uses the phone line (copper) from the cabinet to the house.
The UK is embracing FTTC and FTTP for people in profitable areas. There are lots of people with no prospect of either in the foreseeable future, and as time goes on the remainder are increasingly likely never to get it.
FTTC is still copper wiring….Is wrong
Fiber To The Curb is exactly that, so from the box on the street to the home is copper just like most Virgin services. FTTH is Fiber To The Home
Does the speed guarantee apply to customers already with Vodafone?
From what I understand… This is actually a reduction in customer benefits.
Up until this change if the line speed consistently fails to meet the offered speed you could walk away from the contract as it could be cancelled. (As I am looking at doing now). So current customers have a better service level agreement than new customers.
I had to threaten Voodoo and was ready to log money extortion criminal probe. Then they cancelled my contract. After 8 months worst ever Internet
I really do hope that Vodafone has sorted out their core network as that has recently being suffering severe congestion and they have also been having problems with congestion on lots of exchanges backhaul.
This has meant that the sync speed has been fine but actual real use speed is well below even ADSL with a friends 76Mb connection actually only running at 2-3Mb apart from overnight
Tried getting Vodafone home broadband but kept getting different emails with different days to install so told them to cancel best thing I did
Are they seriously saying for a FTTC line that they know can only support 10MB/s they will provision and allow me to claim 15% back every month? £23 – 15% = £19.55, seems to good to be true for a line they know they wont be able to do anything about :/
My Vodafone router is currently reporting a sync rate of 50mbps. I have had no broadband for three days . Looks like the firmware update to the router that reports if Vodafone is syncing at the Guaranteed Rate is 100% smoke and mirrors !