Cancelling Broadband while still in contract

sheroman01

Has anyone ever successfully cancelled their broadband without penalty fees while still in contract?

With Vodafone Business the past 3 months now and it is DREADFUL! Cuts out every day and slow speeds (despite speed tests coming back with good speeds and an engineer calling out to say everything looks fine). Impossible to work from home like this. Never had any issues with Eir before. I've contacted ComReg who told me what to send in the complaint email so that's been sent in the meantime.

Conrad89

sheroman01 wrote: »

Has anyone ever successfully cancelled their broadband without penalty fees while still in contract?

With Vodafone Business the past 3 months now and it is DREADFUL! Cuts out every day and slow speeds (despite speed tests coming back with good speeds and an engineer calling out to say everything looks fine). Impossible to work from home like this. Never had any issues with Eir before. I've contacted ComReg who told me what to send in the complaint email so that's been sent in the meantime.

Having similar issues myself OP. Vodafone Broadband is constantly dropping out during the day for the last two/three months which makes working from home very challenging. I also have TV package which again constantly lags.

I have got a reduction in my bill recently due to these issues but I don’t know if there are penalties etc for leaving your contract early or ways to avoid these penalties. I will be contacting them tomorrow to try and fix it or I’ll have to cancel the service and move back to virgin/sky as there were no broadband issues previously with those providers.

TomOnBoard

sheroman01 wrote: »

Has anyone ever successfully cancelled their broadband without penalty fees while still in contract?

With Vodafone Business the past 3 months now and it is DREADFUL! Cuts out every day and slow speeds (despite speed tests coming back with good speeds and an engineer calling out to say everything looks fine). Impossible to work from home like this. Never had any issues with Eir before. I've contacted ComReg who told me what to send in the complaint email so that's been sent in the meantime.

Raising the formal DOCUMENTED complaint is a crucial 1st step in a process to exit without penalties. While that process is wending its way (it takes weeks) through Vodafone and then possibly Comreg procedures, you'll still have the same issues.

So, in the meantime:

What exchange are you connected to?
What is your contracted line speed?
What are you using to measure speeds?
What are your actual speed statistics? Ping, down, up, jitter, packet loss?
Have you had the router/modem changed?
When it 'cuts out', what actually happens? Does the link (VDSL/DSL) fall over? Does the IP address change? Does the router/modem actually restart itself?
Have you got any devices connected directly to the router (wired not WiFi)? If so, does such a device(s) behave the same?
What devices have you in the network and what are they running?
Have you any devices doing regular synchronisation or backups with cloud based servers?

sheroman01

Conrad89 wrote: »

Having similar issues myself OP. Vodafone Broadband is constantly dropping out during the day for the last two/three months which makes working from home very challenging. I also have TV package which again constantly lags.

I have got a reduction in my bill recently due to these issues but I don’t know if there are penalties etc for leaving your contract early or ways to avoid these penalties. I will be contacting them tomorrow to try and fix it or I’ll have to cancel the service and move back to virgin/sky as there were no broadband issues previously with those providers.

Hope you get sorted. Let me know how you get on!

sheroman01

TomOnBoard wrote: »

Raising the formal DOCUMENTED complaint is a crucial 1st step in a process to exit without penalties. While that process is wending its way (it takes weeks) through Vodafone and then possibly Comreg procedures, you'll still have the same issues.

So, in the meantime:

What exchange are you connected to?
What is your contracted line speed?
What are you using to measure speeds?
What are your actual speed statistics? Ping, down, up, jitter, packet loss?
Have you had the router/modem changed?
When it 'cuts out', what actually happens? Does the link (VDSL/DSL) fall over? Does the IP address change? Does the router/modem actually restart itself?
Have you got any devices connected directly to the router (wired not WiFi)? If so, does such a device(s) behave the same?
What devices have you in the network and what are they running?
Have you any devices doing regular synchronisation or backups with cloud based servers?

Thanks. I can tell you we have a new router provided by Vodafone. Carried out their troubleshooting steps over the phone too but no fix. Engineer came out and still no fix. Was with eir over two years and not one problem. Hopefully it can be fixed soon or we will try our best to cancel.

Conrad89

sheroman01 wrote: »

Hope you get sorted. Let me know how you get on!

Hi just by way of update - the issue has been diagnosed as an ‘intermittent service’ due to technical issues on the line. Vodafone have organised for a technician to come and have a look at it. Hopefully that will fix the issue.

sheroman01

Conrad89 wrote: »

Hi just by way of update - the issue has been diagnosed as an ‘intermittent service’ due to technical issues on the line. Vodafone have organised for a technician to come and have a look at it. Hopefully that will fix the issue.

Cheers for the update! What county are you in? Meath here and technician said the line was fine but changed our max speed capacity from 90 to 70 (or similar) just to see if that would help, but it didn't.

Conrad89

sheroman01 wrote: »

Cheers for the update! What county are you in? Meath here and technician said the line was fine but changed our max speed capacity from 90 to 70 (or similar) just to see if that would help, but it didn't.

Hi OP just a quick update. After several calls and technical reviews, I have cancelled the service as it was too unreliable for working from home. I ended up paying a termination fee in order to do so (basically the reminder of the contract). I would of waited for the end of contract or went through the complaints process but couldn’t give it that much time as my partner and I need reliable internet to work from home. For me it was a smallish amount as my contract was ending soon anyways.

As noted earlier in the tread by TomonBoard making a formal documented complaint is the way to go. On reflection, I should of done it once the first couple of calls didn’t fix the issue rather than continuing to try and get the issue resolved through phone calls.

Hope all is well and you got your connection issue sorted.

JTMan

sheroman01 wrote: »

Has anyone ever successfully cancelled their broadband without penalty fees while still in contract?

Vodafone allow people cancel penalty free if you tell them you are moving to a new home that cannot be serviced by Vodafone. All that is needed is the address of the new home that is out of service.

sheroman01 wrote: »

With Vodafone Business the past 3 months now and it is DREADFUL! Cuts out every day and slow speeds (despite speed tests coming back with good speeds and an engineer calling out to say everything looks fine). Impossible to work from home like this. Never had any issues with Eir before. I've contacted ComReg who told me what to send in the complaint email so that's been sent in the meantime.

Under consumer law you are entitled to adequate service. Obviously try to resolve this with Vodafone first (ask for a manager and say you want a complaint number because you are going to Comreg) but if you can't get hold of Vodafone or if they don't action your complaint then block the DD.