Vodafone UK Introduce New Mobile Broadband 5G Speed Boost Add-on UPDATE
Some of ISPreview’s readers (credits Jade and Mike) have spotted that mobile network operator Vodafone (VodafoneThree) appears to have quietly added a new ‘Speed Boost’ add-on (Extras), which promises that data usage will be “prioritised on our network giving you the fastest speeds available in busy areas like train stations, stadiums, and crowded places.”
The Speed Boost itself appears to be time based, thus you’ll pay £3 (one-off) for 1 day of boosting, £5 for 7 days, £10 for 30 days (you can optionally also take the £10 option as part of a reoccurring payment). The daily option seems rather pricey for a feature with no clear guarantee of performance increase, but the value does improve for longer periods. The feature seems to be available to both Pay Monthly and PAYG plan users.
Vodafone’s product summary doesn’t provide any technical explanation for what they’re actually doing or enabling with Speed Boost. But digging into the link to their T&Cs did reveal some extra detail: “Speed Boost gives you network priority in busy locations, like train stations or events. With a Xtra Global Roam plan, you’ll get prioritisation in the UK only, for up to 200GB per month; any data used beyond this won’t be prioritised until the next billing cycle. Speed caps still apply. Speed Boost is compatible with 5G devices only.”
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Somewhat confusingly, Vodafone then buries some key details about Speed Boost right down at the very bottom of their ‘Extras’ page. Seriously, Vodafone, why can’t you just put these key details right where the product is actually displayed, instead of splitting it across three different locations?
Speed Boost
Xtras: Compatible with 5G devices only. Users are prioritised as:
up to 10GB for 1 day
50GB for 7 day
200GB for 30-day
This is subject to your plan’s max speeds. Pay monthly plan required.
The reference to “5G devices only” makes us think that Vodafone might be utilising Network Slicing technology to give customers a dedicated data link, although that’s more of a 5G Standalone (5GSA) feature, yet they don’t specifically mention that as being a requirement (i.e. you’d need a Smartphone that’s 5GSA capable, not merely 5G capable). We’ve shot off a request to Vodafone in order to hopefully gain some clarification.
One other question mark is over whether customers with the operator’s Xtra Global Roam plan get Speed Boost included by default, since the T&C’s could be open to interpretation. According to one of Vodafone’s customers, Jade, they still had to add the boost to their plan. This thus also needs some clarification.
Otherwise, it sounds like an interesting feature, although we’d like to think that customers wouldn’t need it. Ideally, the operator should already be doing enough to ensure that there’s plenty of data bandwidth available for all of its customers in busy areas to receive a good service.
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UPDATE 6th Feb 2025 @ 9:09am
Vodafone has responded to our query, which makes it sound like some form of more general traffic management is at play.
A spokesperson for Vodafone told ISPreview:
“Speed Boost works by giving customers prioritised access to capacity across Vodafone’s 4G, 5G non-standalone and 5G standalone networks. It doesn’t give customers access to a dedicated network slice.
It is available for new and upgrading customers on Unlimited Xtra Global Roam plans as an always-on benefit, with 24/7 prioritised data. Alternatively, it is available as an Add-on for all Pay Monthly customers.”
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Speed boost add on – nah – they taking you for a fool. Money grabbing!
Stop waste your money on it.
LOL, 5G don’t even work around here.
So you pay them for a service which they cannot deliver and pay again if you want to use data? And if you pay extra, they will de-prioritise their other paying customers so you can use data? Have I got this right?
This is the way of Vodafone. Once Vodafone takes full control over Three we will see all sorts of price hikes, speed caps/throttling, restrictions etc
Vodafone have recently been enabling 2x100mhz on N78 on busy masts when I queried this was told this was for testing but don’t get used to it.
So I have a feeling this will mean that this new network will mean you get to use the full 2×100 N78 carriers where if not will just get access to 1 carrier along with N1 and N8 where available
I’d be happy if the had 1x100MHz n78 on our mast. At the moment they only seem to have 20Mhz enabled around here.
Bruh, Vodafone’s rationing data priority now. I’m nearly sure business lines have this sort of unlimited priority as standard otherwise apps such as whatever Royal Mail uses and those on uber driver won’t work half the time. O2 business lines definitely have priority over standard PAYM plans. EE does the same data priority rationing bribe addons or included in most expensive plans.
How do you know o2 business lines have priority over standard paym? Do you have any evidence for this? Just really curious as I’ve been wondering about this for a very long time.
Tested on a business line phone before in a normally oversubscribed area, 20mb on 1 bar B20 4G is abit too good to be true for O2 consumer.
O2 has done some huge upgrades recently. So unless you’re comparing them side to side It could just be o2 has improved. Many areas I used to struggle with capacity on o2 now out performs 3 and Voda. Both my personal and work phones are on o2 and they’re identical. Dads phone on Tesco is noticeably worse though, but I expect that.
I wonder if 3 Business users have a higher priority on data ?
And just like that… I’m gifted another reason not to swap to Vodafone.
Another way of looking at this is that Vodafone are saying “pay us to de-prioritise our other customers so that you get priority”.
Looks like new customers get speed boost on Xtra Global Roam plans, existing customers pay.
Existing people on Xtra Global Roam plans don’t get it and don’t seem to be able to have it added unless you pay for the £3/7/10 extra.
If you upgrade to the new version of the plan it’s included but expect that costs more
They keep messing around with 5G which is rarely available in small towns. The funny thing is, most of the time there is barely any 4G in town centers and the most ridiculous is simply not having any connectivity in central Oxford. I will be switching asap.
If this isn’t a way to get fined idk what is, especially when it’s not based on actual benefit since speed caps still apply and according to Vodafone there aren’t all that many majorly congested cells to a level that it matters anyway if you reverse engineer their key facts sheet (which says a reduction in QoS for “heavy” users won’t normally result in detrimental, and doesn’t mention prioritising any data other than voice)
And they don’t know what it does by the sounds of it (the 5g you said in the terms Vs 4g and and 5g in the quote)
Absolute farce.
Has the government gone to the races?
Pretty cheeky of Vodafone this, paying extra because you’re not able to use data in a busy area because of their abysmal underinvested network.
I wonder how that affects others like Talk Mobile (which I know is Vodafone’s budget offering) and other MVNO’s?
kinda naughty because we already get speed caps. (tried pushing an unlimited data sim on me, but thats capped at 10mbps).
This adds further insult, pay for a data sim, not only speed capped unless you pay more but now may or may not work just because moneybags can afford the extra per month to be VIP.
EE do this as well. annoying.
Only time will tell when O2 do it.