Beware of Vodafone 'Broadband'

6digitnumber

Vodafone 3G was good a few weeks back, but now its a big huge pile of stinking pig ****.

It disconnects all the time and when you do get a connection that lasts longer than 5 minutes its very rarely anywhere near broadband speeds. Dialup speeds or worse mosta lot of the time, although at least with dialup you wouldn't get disconnected every 60 seconds.

You'd get a better connection with a couple of tin cans and a length of string. Shame on you vodafone.

bugler

I was of the same opinion 10 days ago. But since then it has steadily improved. It's absolutely flying now, the best I've seen yet. I expect it will slow later in the day, but currently I'm happy with it. I don't ever get disconnected.

Hopefully things will improve for all users soon. I wouldn't be shy about contacting Customer Care and cancelling your contract. If your service is that bad then they're are not fulfilling their side of the agreement.

wirelessdude

mine is flying today..averaging 1.58MB connection...BTW i actually work for Vodafone

Blaster99

I have some potential bad news for the newcomers to this service. I've had it for six months. There are times when it doesn't work, there are times when it works. Just because it's been working for the last couple of days means zippo. I can't see myself keeping it beyond the 12 months.

Patrickof

Wirelessdude, has anything changed on vodafone recently? Our service is now gone back to gprs, where we used to get a fairly reasonable 3g service. I can still get a 3g connection if I put the router upstairs, but it has no connectivity. Since Jan its gone really slow and the 3g is non-existant in recent weeks.

We're in Portlaoise.

niallb

Mine's gone yet again too, after being steady for two or three days.
Great when it works, particularly here where there's no alternative,
but I can't rely on it.

@Wirelessdude, I have station IDs for the 3G signals I can see,
as well as the 2G ones I fall back to. I also have GPS position readings
for my location (More useful than an address, as we're very rural).
Can you suggest a best place to start finding out if any recent changes
are the cause of my woes?

Thanks if you can help out. Understand completely if you can't
in this forum.

NiallB

godskitchen

I have both the vodafone and the Three data packages, i live in the middle of no where, 7 miles with hills in the way of my nearest town in one direction, and the other is blocked with a mountain. This mountain happens to have mobile masts on it, i got the voda data card when it first came out, knowing i would only get dial up speeds as the mast was GPRS, Three had coverage from the mast but as some of you will know, they only just started offering the data package. I was happy to be getting GPRS speeds compared to my 12.2K i was getting on dial up.

So then voda say they will be upgrading masts about the same time Three start to offer their Data package, i ring voda and they tell me there is no chance of my mast getting 3G but the town 7 miles away will be "very soon" but they dont think i would pick it up. i did not think i would either, and people on here told me i wouldnt either, so you guessed it, i went out and got the Three card.......

15 days into my three contract i put the vodafone card into the linksys router and what do i see...............a blue light. Put it into my laptop to see how strong the signal was and i was getting 1 bar at best, i now have a 3G antenna and am getting 2 solid bars, at night with vodafone i get very good speeds.............but in the day its hitting makbe 14kbps download, fine, its better than GPRS by about 3X.............but not when it freezes every 5 seconds!

My three card has not been used in 2 weeks, sim messed up and im waiting on a new one but i was getting 45kbps all day long, no freezing and no cutting out.............so IMO your quality of service is all down to how far away your mast is and how many people are in your cell, im pretty sure im the only one on my mast with the Three 3G data card, as for the voda one, its in a town and being used all the time during the day.

And as more people come onto the cell the worse it will get, it does my head in at times to see the speeds all over the place, i work from home and its annoying me to think there are kids downloading ringtones using up bandwidth and slowing my connection down.............i know its the same even on a dsl/cable connection, but the effects on the mobile networks seem to be extreme...........

crawler

wirelessdude wrote:

mine is flying today..averaging 1.58MB connection...BTW i actually work for Vodafone

Brave man! sounds of flood gates opening

Patrickof

Godskitchen, good news that the 3 card works with the linksys - that was one thing holding me back from trying it.

I can appreciate how the throughput can change if the number of users goes up, but I don't think that should affect the carrier signal - i.e. fall back from 3g to gprs. Unless the mast reduces power at the edge to support more users "closer in" and thus removes us from the 3G coverage.

Wireless dude, i can also give gps position if thats any good.

BTW, anyone noticed how you cannot access any of the international vodafone sites (vodafone.co.uk, vodacom.co.za) via the vodafone 3g service. Vodafone.co.nz hosts links to a lot of the firmware updates http://www.vodafone.co.nz/services/broadband_support.jsp

godskitchen

Patrickof wrote:

Godskitchen, good news that the 3 card works with the linksys - that was one thing holding me back from trying it.

if you are wanting to do it, you have to put the Three SIM in the vodafone card and set up the APN, or just use the vodafone SIM, of course it wont connect but when you put the Three data card in, the E630, it says "Card not on list". When you have the APN set up with the E620, just pop in the E630 and it connects no problem.

Patrickof

Hoping to get a "3" card tonight and try it out. If it works then it's onto vodafone and try and get out of the remaining 5 months of the contract.

I presume they have their T&Cs worded to mean that the GPRS service is all they guarantee.

godskitchen

Patrickof wrote:

Hoping to get a "3" card tonight and try it out. If it works then it's onto vodafone and try and get out of the remaining 5 months of the contract.

I presume they have their T&Cs worded to mean that the GPRS service is all they guarantee.

Let me know how you get on i would be interested to know!

mcaul

This thread (and other VF threads) has been brought to the attention of senior people in Vodafone conected to the 3G rollout - so it may make a difference.

jhegarty

mcaul wrote:

This thread (and other VF threads) has been brought to the attention of senior people in Vodafone conected to the 3G rollout - so it may make a difference.

in that case mine drops a few times an hour..... disconnects for a few evening a month... but its ok when it is connected....

Graham

I've had a vodafone 3g usb modem for about 5 weeks now, based in D7 (next to the Four Courts) only ever used 9:00 - 5:30.

Connection and download speeds are generally good to very good but whats with the loss of inbound data 5 or more times a day? I can see IP traffic leaving my connection but inbound frequently drops to a couple of hundred bps or complete 0bps.

Disconnect and reconnect occassionaly fixes it, otherwise unplug modem and plug it back in.

niallb

mcaul wrote:

This thread (and other VF threads) has been brought to the attention of senior people in Vodafone conected to the 3G rollout - so it may make a difference.

That's encouraging.
Might it be an idea to start a new thread to collate information on when and where service is up or down?
I mean a simple complaint free thread.
Location, signal strength, service availability only.
Would that be useful to techs at vodafone, or would someone from
Vodafone maybe suggest something else we could do.
I wouldn't go for a "send a message/email" to an auto email address,
but something publically visible.

NiallB

Patrickof

Godskitchen, no luck with the 3 datacard. Went into the shop to get one and they tell me that there's no coverage where I live (Portlaoise, just north east of the town).

I'll get onto them and see what their rollout plans are.

Patrickof

I hope vodafone are looking at this thread as they're certainly not responding to my calls. Absolutely no response to three emails sent to them (I got the auto acknowledgement though) nor any response to numerous voicemails left on their system.

davidf1412

I did get one call back from Vodafone responding to my complaint about the speed being totally unreliable - less then 1kbps about 50% of the time, often 0, but I missed the call.

Since then no reply to emails or calls at all. The service is bad. I hope Vodafone are reading this.

Patrickof

Well something must be happening, just received a call back from vodafone before lunch and now have just gotten an email response.

Just a pity they're two completly different answers!!!

THe guy on the phone was quite knowledgable and found that I'm on the mast (LSMRE, Emo just off M7) which has a 3g fault logged since 7th feb and is awaiting replacement parts. He couldn't say but that might explain why the service has been bad through Jan and early feb - maybe the fault was unnoticed. Anyway its due to be repaired in the next few days.

The email I got from vodafone care was a nice chirpy "nothing wrong at our end" email, saying that 3g in our area was functioning normally!!!!!

Patrickof

Dunno what was changed, but at around 6pm yesterday evening, the 3g light came back on the linksys router. Speeds and throughput are back to normal. Looks like our local mast problem was rectified.

matthiku

Patrickof wrote:

Godskitchen, no luck with the 3 datacard. Went into the shop to get one and they tell me that there's no coverage where I live (Portlaoise, just north east of the town). (...)

I talked to somebody recently who went to the Three shop in Ennis and was told that there is no coverage in their area.

He told me that when I was visiting them in their home with my laptop and the 3 datacard in it, and the datacard software showed 5 bars on the signal strenght inidcator.... without any booster antennae.

So my advise is: go ask somebody who has a 3 card (or just a three phone for that matter) and check it out yourself and don't believe what they are saying in the shops....

niallb

I'd agree with Matthiku saying try it for yourself.
I'd also say he just got had bad luck with the shop in Ennis.
I used the Three shop in Navan, and the staff were great.

There are Three policies in place which can make things awkward,
but don't shoot the messenger!

The Three card didn't work reliably where I live, but I tried both
it and my Vodafone USB card in a friend's laptop in Dublin.
The Three card was more than FOUR TIMES FASTER than the vodafone one, and clocked in a speedtest.ie result better than the 2Mb Eircom DSL at the same address.

If I could even get a 144k solid link out of the Vodafone card here, I'd be satisfied.
NiallB

Patrickof

I rang 3 directly and after convincing them that Laois wasn't in Meath eventually was told that I'm probably covered by 3g.

But as the vodafone service is now back working (thankfully) since last night I'll find it difficult to get out of the 12 month contract. So barring any further problems with vodafone, I'll stay put for another few months but will look around at 3 again in june.

davidf1412

Just had a call from Vodafone and apparently some firewall problem was sorted out at their end last night, and it does seem to be faster.

Though PCPitstop bandwidth test gave Download speed: 116 kilobits per second - should I expect better in Dublin 15?

Anyway streaming radio is pretty good with very few buffering pauses.

niallb

VF still working here too (Tara) with only two drops in the last two days.
Signal strength just went down a little though, and I know if it goes
any lower, I'll lose it. (6,99 dropped to 5,99 according to AT+CSQ)
In December, it was 9,99 all the way.

Danno

A mate of mine in Ballyragget has the Vodafone modem - connects at 374kbps or something like that - but data flows are WORSE than a 19.2kbps connection on dial-up. Pages load sooooo slowly.

Sponge Bob

thats the 618 card that should never have been sold as a hsdpa card

is his bearer office.vodafone.ie then ??? tell him change to hs.vodafone.ie and see what happens.

godskitchen

Is anyone else having problems watching stuff on youtube? it seems not to work for me most of the time, when i can still use the internet and download......

Also MSN seems to cut off ALL the time during the day...............


anyone?

OfflerCrocGod

godskitchen wrote:

Is anyone else having problems watching stuff on youtube? it seems not to work for me most of the time, when i can still use the internet and download......

Also MSN seems to cut off ALL the time during the day...............

I'd say you are loosing a lot of packets try a tracert looping for 1 or 2 minutes.

godskitchen

i dont know how to make tracert loop but i have just tried it on some major web sites , the BBC and the like..............getting lots of request time outs and its taking forever!

Really starting to go off the vodafone service...............it is all over the place from day to day.