Testing/Discussion: Vodafone 5G & 4G - Inc. Voxi, Lebara

[MarkyR74]

Possibly just had the worst encounter with a live chat representative. Probably sounds a bit OTT but it kind of just annoyed me?

Requested details for SIMO deals on a 12 month deal. Offered me the stuff on the site, said they can't discount 12 months (Previous staff have) then started to question why I don't want a 24 month deal.

Said he didn't quite understand why I only wanted 12 months. 24 works out cheaper and I have the option to upgrade for free, so why pay more?

Tried explaining I don't want to be tied into a network for 2 years when circumstances at any stage could change, finances, location and coverage etc

'We cover 99% of the UK and have more 5G locations'

Explained I'm also happy with the device I have and always buy outright as it's cheaper/easier with trade ins etc.

So even if you buy your phone outright, everything is going up in price, wouldn't you like to know for 24 months the price is set.

I didn't even go down the yearly price increase with the RPI etc, I really couldn't be bothered! Told him the pushy sales techniques wouldn't work here, to which he responded he wasn't being pushy.

To which I responded I've told you several times I'm only interested in 12 month deals and you're constantly going on about 24 month deals.

Basically told him I'll PAC and go. To which he responded have a nice day.


Sounds petty but that is probably the worst I've ever had from any of the main networks! Rant over. I'll maybe try again tomorrow, see if my name has a black mark against it!

That's a terrible experience. Not alone, I've had Sky lie to me about things where an agent tells you one thing and then another something completely different. Also I was with Plusnet once and I called them to see what they could do for me as I was getting FTTC, the sales guy was so arrogant it was enough to make me walk and never return. So much for award winning customer service.

 

[uknowiama]

That's a terrible experience. Not alone, I've had Sky lie to me about things where an agent tells you one thing and then another something completely different. Also I was with Plusnet once and I called them to see what they could do for me as I was getting FTTC, the sales guy was so arrogant it was enough to make me walk and never return. So much for award winning customer service.

Plusnet - I've had good and bad experience. More good than bad. But bad sticks in the memory. I tried to get same deal as new customer. Told don't offer for existing. Bit arrogant about it all. So quit. Ran on 4G for a month or two. Resigned. By then better offer and pre-paid credit card £50 as well. Anyways off topic…

 

[jbennett360]

Gave up with them and have gone back to EE!

 

[kocz]

Lebara unlimited SIM, dunno what's going on here. Had a consistent 160-170Mb/s download speed for the first month, but ever since a weird mast fault (I'm assuming) where one of the bands disappeared for half a day, my speeds have been fluctuating and much slower at around 110 Mb/s. Upload seems to be unaffected, though is still a megabit or two slower than before.

 

[jbennett360]

New mast gone live not too far away from me.

Issue is, phone keeps wanting to connect to that one rather than masts that are closer! Signal is sticking around 1 bar on band 7.

Battery life has took a bit of a hit because of this too! Seems to be constantly flicking between that one and others nearby!

 

[JitteryPinger]

It's been a while since anything has been said on this thread but hey I'm here to enlighted the day a little bit more.

So has anybody had the opertunity to test Vodafone's 5G-SA sites yet?

or did anybody notice that according to CellMapper there's a food bunch of them them around now in major cities including my own.

I may well have to look at getting a Vodafone sim again to test these out.

EDIT: Ordered a Voxi Endless Sim

 

[AshOnFire1989]

My mobile is on Voda, and it still shows closet mast Voda as 5G NSA, will keep eye on it see if it changes

 

[GavinAshford]

VF SA is attachable in terms of what cellmapper needs from the data to be able to log, but the SA can't be authenticated with (to the public), so data won't actually flow (i.e. it can't be tested yet)

 

[jbennett360]

Anyone have any idea what this could be.

One of Vodafone's new poles went up and is broadcasting 5G along with 4G bands 1,7,8,20. There's now future work taking place soon.

THESE WORKS ARE FOR THE ESSENTIAL UPGRADING OF MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT. THESE WORKS WILL INVOLVE THE UPGRADING OF THE ANTENNAS ON THE COLUMN

Any ideas as to what it could be? I feel like it's already quite well equipped?

 

[drevilbob]

Anyone have any idea what this could be.

One of Vodafone's new poles went up and is broadcasting 5G along with 4G bands 1,7,8,20. There's now future work taking place soon.

THESE WORKS ARE FOR THE ESSENTIAL UPGRADING OF MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT. THESE WORKS WILL INVOLVE THE UPGRADING OF THE ANTENNAS ON THE COLUMN

Any ideas as to what it could be? I feel like it's already quite well equipped?

Maybe 64x64 MiMo 5G antennas

 

[JitteryPinger]

Anyone have any idea what this could be.

One of Vodafone's new poles went up and is broadcasting 5G along with 4G bands 1,7,8,20. There's now future work taking place soon.

THESE WORKS ARE FOR THE ESSENTIAL UPGRADING OF MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT. THESE WORKS WILL INVOLVE THE UPGRADING OF THE ANTENNAS ON THE COLUMN

Any ideas as to what it could be? I feel like it's already quite well equipped?

Vodafone have said that about my local mast many many many times but actually done nothing.

 

[CarlO1460]

So, my friend at Vodafone is going to see if can force my voxi number to an esim as apparently it works both contract and PAYG for voda.

I'm not hopeful, but it'll be great if it did work

 

[kocz]

I really wonder what's going on with my local monopole. Occasionally, but intermittently, the B1 cell (128350223) on my mast disappears for anywhere from 30 minutes to a day, obviously resulting in much slower speeds. I've never noticed the B20 cell disappear, and I know it's not just a signal or interference issue as I can connect to the other B1 cell on the mast perfectly fine, albeit with obviously worse signal stats as it's facing the opposite direction.

 

[JitteryPinger]

I really wonder what's going on with my local monopole. Occasionally, but intermittently, the B1 cell (128350223) on my mast disappears for anywhere from 30 minutes to a day, obviously resulting in much slower speeds. I've never noticed the B20 cell disappear, and I know it's not just a signal or interference issue as I can connect to the other B1 cell on the mast perfectly fine, albeit with obviously worse signal stats as it's facing the opposite direction.

I used to have this issue on a VF mast too, however I can't say what was wrong or if it got resolved, I would say try and report the issue to Vodafone

 

[GavinAshford]

Sounds like power saving, O2 are known to turn off bands other than B20 overnight from 11:30pm-6am (or something like that). Perhaps VF are using doing something more load driven to do similar

 

[DJG]

Anyone have any idea what this could be.

One of Vodafone's new poles went up and is broadcasting 5G along with 4G bands 1,7,8,20. There's now future work taking place soon.

THESE WORKS ARE FOR THE ESSENTIAL UPGRADING OF MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS EQUIPMENT. THESE WORKS WILL INVOLVE THE UPGRADING OF THE ANTENNAS ON THE COLUMN

Any ideas as to what it could be? I feel like it's already quite well equipped?

Not sure why, but a new Vodafone pole that went live near me about a year ago then had a couple of follow-up bits of work scheduled on one.network. On one of these occasions I did actually drive past the mast and the 5G panels were off. I didn't notice any difference in the coverage or 5G speeds I got once the work was complete (topping out around 200Mbps).

 

[kocz]

Sounds like power saving, O2 are known to turn off bands other than B20 overnight from 11:30pm-6am (or something like that). Perhaps VF are using doing something more load driven to do similar

Sounds plausible, though it's definitely rare. But every time I've noticed B1 go missing, it's been around those hours (perhaps a little earlier). And I think the mast used to be O2 only, now it's shared with VF so perhaps it's following O2's power management policy.

Either way, not a major issue as it's still sufficient and is always resolved by the next day. The only major issue I've had was when all the cells on the mast disappeared for half a day, never noticed anyone working on it, saw nothing reported on VF's status page - but that was a one-off, so I'm not too concerned.

 

[ssg9]

My young brother is using more and more data (tiktok, youtube, etc), so I ordered a Talkmobile SIM via uswitch. Lots of data, cheap, monthly contract... Vodafone's network isn't as fast as EE in London, but their 4G is faster than Three and O2, so I thought it was a good solution.

Turns out that the signal isn't great in some of the places (indoors) he spends a lot of time at. Slow LTE B20, the phone often falls back to 3G/H+ B8, etc... not good enough for video or the occasional hotspot usage, so we decided not to renew the plan. Annoying, but I was aware that their signal isn't as good as EE/Three in some places, so no problem here. We can try something else.

Talkmobile itself though...

- Can't login via their website.
- Tried to reset the password. The confirmation code was taking 5-10 minutes to arrive (ended up asking for more than 1 code).
- Set new password successfully, try to login again but it fails because the information is "wrong".
- Reset password again... another 10 minutes for the code to arrive.
- The login info still doesn't work on their website, but does on their app (why?).
- Their app is very basic and looks cheap (I'm being picky, but look at this image for example).
- Some menus/options return a "an unexpected error occurred" message.
- Can't cancel the plan via their app/website, had to contact their support.
- Chat form asks me to provide all my details (phone number, address, date of birth, etc).
- Support guy then asks me for the same information again and I have to give him some numbers of a confirmation code they sent me (at least it was fast).
- The information I gave them doesn't match their records... now I need to send them a photo of my ID to update my information (and I have no idea what exactly is wrong). Only then I can cancel the plan.

I've used a few MVNOs, but never had an experience this bad. In terms of speeds and coverage, the service is similar to what I get from a Vodafone SIM on a 12mo contract (5G, wifi calling, etc) and it costs less, but this is first and last time I'll use Talkmobile.

 

[The Wee Bear]

Don't know if anyone would be interested folks, but Lebara currently have an offer of 12GB for 1p per month for 6 months.

Unlimited UK calls and texts.

Quite a wee bargain me thinks.

Lebara 1p Offer

Just sharing, just in case there are more cheapskates out there.

 

[CarlO1460]

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Don't know if anyone would be interested folks, but Lebara currently have an offer of 12GB for 1p per month for 6 months.

Unlimited UK calls and texts.

Quite a wee bargain me thinks.

Lebara 1p Offer

Just sharing, just in case there are more cheapskates out there.

This would be ideal if they all got esim up and running!