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Vodafone - 58Mb/s into router 15Mb/s out over Ethernet?

I’m sure you’re right. But I guess I’m just trying anything that “might” help get me through to our expiry date of Oct this year.

On the Vodafone forum someone mentioned a BT Buyout Scheme, so I might explore that if things don’t improve.
Perhaps Mark (Aquiss), as someone with knowledge of the providers requirements and the relevant regulations, could advise if the woeful speeds are enough to break your contract penalty free??
 
Contractually they only guarantee a sync speed, which is currently around 56Mb/s vs their guaranteed minimum of 51Mb/s (on my 76Mb package).

Still had no acknowledgement of our formal complaint (raised last Weds).

The only response I’ve had is from a moderator on the VF forum (this morning) who gave me a code number and asked me to submit a complaint, logging it as a Streaming issue, so that they could add it to their statistics...
 
Yes it is very frustrating, the sync guarantee really stems from the Ofcom Voluntary Code which is focussed on sync speed unfortunately.

I can understand why Ofcom did this partly becasue of the xDSL technology in use being distance based + twisted pair quality being occasionally variable as well as previous ISP advertising of headline speeds.

Still nothing back from my complaint either, although only put in on Friday. I've just politely asked to no early exit fee due to the continued faulty service since December 2018, which has been acknowledged by Phil Wilson on the community forum, but no answer yet from him as to a fix or timescales.

It's also frustrating from some of the tests that some of the VF forum members have done with friends also on VF that they are not affected by the speed issue - even when the traceroute is the same - so some customers don't seem to be affected!

I did also ask them about their traffic management policy - it was available whan I joined (stating none) here http://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband/trafficmanagement as stated in the VF Broadband T&C but that page just gives an error now. (I know, most likely an admin error!)

I am also considering the early exit charge (£200 in my case I think) from https://www.vodafone.co.uk/cs/groups/public/documents/webcontent/vfcon095509.pdf which I need to confirm - as some other ISPs offers freebies cashback etc may come in at more than this!

Other than crossing fingers on the complaint there is always the Consumer Protection Act, but you'd have to prove the service was of insufficient quality (up to a County Court if you're willing to take it that far!!)
 
Actually rang VF today and spoke to CS to check my early termination fee which they quoted as £156 so 25% less than expected.

Also Phil Wilson posted an update to the issue on the VF community forum:
They think they know the problem and are working on a fix, no timescales however.

Food for thought, using a cashback site and BT offer (Superfast 2)(ends in 2 days) gives £140 cashback, £120 prepaid card and an Amzon echo to flog on the bay for a few quid - pretty much pays off the exit charge and reduces the increased monthly charge to a few extra quid a month. That's ordering through the internet - over the phone they would do the echo + up to £300 for your exit charge.

I really don't want to let VF have the £156 for nothing but......

Clock's ticking 2 days to make my mind up!
 
Progress!

I submitted our complaint for the 3rd time (7 days after its original submission) and this time prefaced it with a statement that our next step would be to contact Ofcom.

This afternoon we received a phone call from Vodafone.

They have now decided that our sync speed is less than their guaranteed minimum (they've previously asserted that 58Mb/s was above the lower limit of what we could expect), but asked that we give their Tech team one last chance to resolve the problem (contacting us within 72 hours).

We will then receive a call back from this afternoon's gentleman on Monday to check on our satisfaction.

If we are not satisfied with the improvements (if any) by the Tech team then we can choose to leave (no penalty) if we want to.

Phew...

Watch this space ;)
 
Progress!

I submitted our complaint for the 3rd time (7 days after its original submission) and this time prefaced it with a statement that our next step would be to contact Ofcom.

This afternoon we received a phone call from Vodafone.

They have now decided that our sync speed is less than their guaranteed minimum (they've previously asserted that 58Mb/s was above the lower limit of what we could expect), but asked that we give their Tech team one last chance to resolve the problem (contacting us within 72 hours).

We will then receive a call back from this afternoon's gentleman on Monday to check on our satisfaction.

If we are not satisfied with the improvements (if any) by the Tech team then we can choose to leave (no penalty) if we want to.

Phew...

Watch this space ;)
Strange how progress gets made after you start talking about how they are stonewalling you on here.

Almost like they read the ISPR website and dont want to get a bad rep!!
 
Finally...

Following another 45 mins on the phone this morning I was getting close to giving up as I seemed to be right back at square one, explaining our streaming problem from scratch. "Can you please disconnect this... can you please connect this... we will send you a new router free of charge..." Noooooooo!

Thankfully I was eventually passed to a UK based member of the team. He acknowledged their issues with streaming services and that I was attached to one of the lines that was affected.

He offered to try and ascertain a timescale for resolving the issue, but as I pointed out to him, we've been experiencing this problem for 3 months and had lost faith in Vodafone as a service provider.

He agreed that he too would be looking to leave an ISP if he'd had problems for that length of time. He could see last week's contact from their Customer Relations Team (the only people who can authorise early termination without penalty) and offered to email them and essentially plead our case.

An hour later we received a call from the customer relations team offering to terminate our contract (without penalty) if that was indeed what we wanted to do. Yes please!

Thank you to all contributors to my thread as I'm pretty sure that I would have just had to struggle through to October without your input and support.
 
Plus, because the sync speed is 58Mb/s, they are complying with their guaranteed minimum speed.

Regards their minimum speed guarantee; hopefully you still have your joining letter which sets out their commitments to you, in return for the money you give them. With a leave date of Oct'19 this letter should state on page three the "Min download speed (in Mbps). Nowhere in your joining letter will it state a minimum sync speed. Your contract has a MINIMUM DOWNLOAD SPEED it does not have a minimum sync rate!
*There are actually multiple little gems such as this within the Vodafone contract - all you have to do si go looking for them!
 
Thanks Crimson.

Happily VF brought forward our contract end date to 25th Feb, so we are now counting down our final few weeks 😄👍

Streaming services and YouTube are still affected by their problems, but at least there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Just found this thread. VF customers should check page 3 of their joining letter. That letter gives guaranteed minimum download speeds, sync-speeds are never mentioned. If you are a VF customer do not let VF fob you off telling you that download speed means sync-speed!
 
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