[Ben]

Performance has definitely degraded for me on Vodafone 3G Broadband since the new £15/mo tariff was launched. I appreciate capacity issues can be very location specific, so I'm referring specifically to two locations in the Whitstable, Kent area.

Pings are way up from 200ms to average 806ms to www.bbc.co.uk and boy can you feel it compared to Vodafone previously. HSDPA on Vodafone felt like fixed line broadband before, it really did! Not so much now, nothing more special than any of the other networks I'd imagine.

Download speeds are a tardy ~300kbps, upload ~73kbps.

All in all, it's clear that, in my area at least, there are urgent capacity issues. The service is still usable at the moment, but it's by no means the market-leading mobile broadband experience it once was. I know it will take time to create new backhaul, but I hope Vodafone are aware of these issues and taking as swift action as is possible. I want my 200ms latency and mbps speeds back, some of us still pay £25/mo!

[Hands0n]

isn't it time for an email to Vodafone with FIT165 in the body of the text :)

Full details of how to contact the Vodafone team here (http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=31)

[Hands0n]

More feedback:

It does look like a localised problem Ben - but it could just be engineering work on the HSPA side rather than any localised congestion per se. Unless sales in your area have been notably good?

I am on my Vodafone USB Stick right now - it has the light blue indicator up (HSPA network, or Mobile Broadband as Voda like to call it). I did a few downloads and peaked at 108KBps (multiply by 8 to get 864Kbps which is most certainly HSPDA outside of London districts and the airports as advertised by Vodafone).

Ping times are up to spec:-
--- bbc.co.uk ping statistics ---
1296 packets transmitted, 1286 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 99.181/269.656/2921.390/332.997 ms

[Ben]

Gosh, your pings are much more like they should be - a little loss and some spikes but nothing too bad. Your download speed should really be in the mbps, though, but I concede that your download rate is far, far more acceptable than mine!

Perhaps Kent Uni and the sprawling student population are eating all the data. Wouldn't have thought it'd affect me out here, though? It could always be the damn Londoners coming down for more oysters :D

[Hands0n]

I've just been reading on the Vodafone forum of some London folk who are getting low tens of bits per second and even as low as 6kbps (now that would really get me rattled). Vodafone admit that there is network congestion and try to explain all of the reasons why. The advice from Vodafone is to try using the service at other times of the day, some wag suggested 4am!

Errr, not quite the response one expects. Preferable would be something like "We have noted your problems, advised our network planning team who is going to up the capacity in your area". Hmmm, now that would be more like it :)

[Hands0n]

@Ben - I do think it worth you checking this link out and sending that email off to Vodafone

http://forum.vodafone.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1204

You appear not to be alone by a long chalk!

[Ben]

Wow, thanks for that Hands0n, great to see I'm not alone. I've submitted my details, hopefully it'll be a case of the more people that get in touch the faster Vodafone will look into the issues.

I expected it to be honest, they're undercutting some ADSL providers using technology not proven for mass broadband provision. That doesn't make it ok, though.

[Ben]

01:23 and getting 1.4mbps down, 260kbps up and 120ms lag. Go figure! ;)

[Hands0n]

It would be interesting to see if the problem comes back later in the day - and if weekend is easier than weekday.

The problem could also be something to do with your account settings. Remember that O2 were able to cap people off at 128Kbps, because that is all that O2 thought a customer would ever want :eek: It may be that Vodafone did some housekeeping on their systems and unwittingly capped you off, time of day even! There is a vague suggestion from one of the Vodafone forum team that account settings could be at the root of the problem.

[miffed]

This is the problem with the "Dongle revolution"

I have all but given up on my 3 Dongle , The low prices are great - but If I am honest I'd rather be paying £20 per GB and gettting decent speeds , than £5/10 per GB and sharing it with every Tom Dick & Harry

Such a shame !

[Hands0n]

:eek: am I the only one getting 800 - 1024Kbps [on Vodafone]? I even get similar speeds on my T-Mobile N95 when using it as a modem!

[Ben]

Still getting 120ms ping atm. Left the dongle hooked up all night as well and I'm still connected to the VPN - so it has been very stable. 1.3mbps down and 282kbps up - now it's your connection that looks tardy! :o

Edit: Definitely getting the full on broadband experience this morning. It'll be interesting to see how this issue develops.

[Ben]

Speeds have been back to normal both at home and work over the last few days. Nice low latency, too.

[Hands0n]

Hmmm, its got not much to do with any localised usage issues then - especially as complaints to the Vodfone forum were fairly well distributed across the country. I wonder if they had some vital bit of bottlenecking network kit go flaky on them. Not that anyone actually builds networks like that at all :rolleyes: