Vodafone Broadband - Thoughts?

Author
Discussion

bensb93

Original Poster:

22 posts

102 months

Wednesday
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My Sky Broadband has gone up £5 a month and that's for the 75mb connection. I'm within the cooling off period, so have the ability to cancel and go elsewhere.

Noticed Vodafone are offering 500mb for the same price as what I am paying now. So I am now exploring that avenue.

Some things I noticed where....

- Sold as 500mb, but minimum of 250mb. I mean 250mb is plenty for me, but is it ever that low or are they just protecting themselves? Other ISPs tend to be much closer to the actual "Sold" speed.
- When I called Sky, before I even mentioned the V word, they slated them and stated their broadband drops out and "recaches" several times a day, which would be a nightmare for home workers. Any truth in this or typical sales clutching at straws?

Be interested to know the opinions of any Vodafone Broadband user's and whether they'd recommend or run a mile. If there are any other really competitively priced ISPs out there, feel free to mention them.

Thanks in advance.

Scabutz

5,441 posts

67 months

Wednesday
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I am with Vodafone but the actual infrastructure is provided by CityFibre so it might not be comparable. I have a 900mb connection and to be fair when I do a proper speed test (ethernet into the router) I am usually there or there about. Have on occasion seen it over 900mb on upload.

Just did a test now, I got 600. Thats on Ethernet, but via a switch and there are two other people in the house at the min doing online meetings so not bad

heisthegaffer

2,888 posts

185 months

Wednesday
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I've mentioned this before and was a few years back so perhaps they're better now but I was with Vodafone and they agreed to cancel the contract mid term as it was so awful.

Poor speed, terrible router and was without internet for 2 weeks after a visit by an engineer albeit, that was an openreach guy.

I went with BT after until we moved last year and VT was absolutely brilliant. Other than a single 30 min drop out, was faultless and quick plus the router was excellent as well.

We're with plusnet following the move as needed to save money where we could... It's not been worth it so I'll either go back to BT or go with LIT fibre who'll have installed the infrastructure by the time out contract is up.

Percy Cushion

1,081 posts

207 months

Wednesday
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I moved from Virgin to Vodafone a year or two ago and have never had a problem despite several devices streaming at the same time. I’m paying around £20 per month.

six wheels

274 posts

122 months

Wednesday
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We’re with Vodafone on a broadband ADSL, something around 70mb.

There are two of us WFH. We’ve had Wifi cutouts - but I think that’s out house and router placement - but the underlying service has been acceptably solid.

We have the 70mb service and that’s broadly the speed we get from a cabled connection.

I wouldn’t recommend against going for Vodafone.

steveo3002

10,018 posts

161 months

Wednesday
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i had a run with them trying to sign up to broadband , it was one of the customer experiences of my life , really really bad , going around and around repeating the same issues , them threatening me with debt collectors when i owned them nothing

would rather go without than use them

Brainpox

3,735 posts

138 months

Wednesday
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Vodafone is cheap for a reason. They rent their cabling from another company, and it's that company that will determine the quality of your service. However, if you have any problems with it, you're going through Vodafone, which saves money by having st customer service.

Most Vodafone customers will have no problems at all, just as if they had gone directly with the company that owns the line, and will have saved a decent chunk of money every month. But if your connection goes down and you call them, you're in for a st show.

So it depends how important internet access is to you. If downtime will cost you money then I'm not sure I'd take the risk. If it's just for home use then you don't have much to lose.

Grumps.

2,390 posts

23 months

Wednesday
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City Fibre is potentially being sold to virgin media so I would avoid them at any cost!

the-norseman

10,475 posts

158 months

Wednesday
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I'm on Vodafone though CityFibre and its been very good. I'm on the 200 up and down. My Google Wifi tests it several times a day and does an average and its always 200+.


Lagom

375 posts

49 months

Wednesday
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Just switched from BT 70 to Vodafone 100 FTTP. The WiFi router is faster than the BT v2 Hub and not had any problems with the broadband. After the discounts and cashback (via TCB compare) it worked out at £19 per month compared to the £35 BT wanted. No brainer.

Many people bh about their broadband connections when often it's the WiFi router to blame, they don't understand the difference.

adamfawsitt

498 posts

200 months

Wednesday
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I have found Vodafone ADSL very good - 2 years in and a solid 65 Mb/s (we are in the middle of nowhere). FYI - I requested a fixed IP address and they provided this within 24 hours with no charge.

bensb93

Original Poster:

22 posts

102 months

Yesterday (19:15)
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Thanks very much, some mixed views, but very helpful.

anonymoususer

4,642 posts

35 months

Yesterday (23:05)
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Grumps. said:
City Fibre is potentially being sold to virgin media so I would avoid them at any cost!
I wasn't aware of that and find it rather disturbing.
IMHO I think that VM have gone downhill rapidly over the last couple of years

James6112

1,989 posts

15 months

Brainpox said:
Vodafone is cheap for a reason. They rent their cabling from another company, and it's that company that will determine the quality of your service. However, if you have any problems with it, you're going through Vodafone, which saves money by having st customer service.

Most Vodafone customers will have no problems at all, just as if they had gone directly with the company that owns the line, and will have saved a decent chunk of money every month. But if your connection goes down and you call them, you're in for a st show.

So it depends how important internet access is to you. If downtime will cost you money then I'm not sure I'd take the risk. If it's just for home use then you don't have much to lose.
Most carriers use others infrastructure

Are you saying that all fttp services are bad because they rent their cabling from Openreach?

Vodafone customer service looks about the same as the rest, according to Ofcom measures:-

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...

I’d take Vodafone fibre without hesitation. Unfortunately it’s not in my area yet so Virgin is my only real choice! (as the Openreach fttp isn’t great here, whoever’s name is on it..)

I’ll give 3uk 5g a go, @£20 a month, when my renewal comes up. If it works well i’ll stick with it.

Doofus

23,078 posts

160 months

I've had Vodafone since Tuesday. I'm happy so far.


heisthegaffer

2,888 posts

185 months

Is fibre more reliable for any reason? Newer, more advanced infrastructure?

Uncle boshy

145 posts

56 months

Vodafone, like sky and indeed most ISPs doesn’t t have its own underlying network

Instead it uses open reach or city fibre. Think of it a bit like electricity, your underlying supply network comes from a small number of companies such as SSE, but you can buy from loads of retail suppliers, e.g octopus.

Broadly the underlying speeds and performance are very similar, the contract differences on minimum speeds are contractual rather than technical, so you shouldn’t really see much difference on a like for like service.

Skys comment that they are more reliable is just sales BS

Full fibre is more reliable and stable than copper (fttc) and definitely worth the upgrade whoever you choose. In this case it looks like sky are offering older copper vs Vodafone offering full fibre.

In your house, the router is likely to make the biggest difference - if Wi-Fi performance is rubbish, that will be your experience, even if the underlying network performance is good.

Vodafone’s latest router is very good and similar performance to BT,s latest hub and better than sky,s

Then as for the comment about fibre and VM, this is not quite true.

Telefonica and liberty, who are the co owners of VMO2 are building a wholesale network as a competitor to openreach. VM02 will be the anchor customer, but it’s a separate network, and other customers are likely to use it in the future. Bit like BT vs openreach

https://www.telefonica.com/en/communication-room/l...


Riff Raff

4,867 posts

182 months

Uncle boshy said:
In your house, the router is likely to make the biggest difference - if Wi-Fi performance is rubbish, that will be your experience, even if the underlying network performance is good.

Vodafone’s latest router is very good and similar performance to BT,s latest hub and better than sky,s
Just to pick up on this. We have fibre to the premises: we currently have a contract with Vodafone, previously the contract was with BT.

The supplied Vodafone router is very good - we’ve had no issues with it at all. The BT router was bulletproof as well.

Where the Vodafone router scores over the Bt one is that it came as standard with a wifi extender, and it has a dongle with a (4G?) sim in it, so if the landline goes down it switches automatically to a cellular connection. I know BT have the same functionality, but when I had a contract with them it was something you had to pay extra for. With Vodafone it’s all included in the base price.

ashleyman

6,660 posts

86 months

I have a sim only deal with voxi (Vodafone) and also have Vodafone broadband. 900mb FTTP. Both are great. Never any issues. And also. Never had any yearly price increases. I am still paying the same as a few years back.

Pistom

4,159 posts

146 months

I've just gone with them for fibre broadband and have so far had no problems.

I've not actually got internet yet so it's early days.