Vodafone is rubbish - its official

digp

The signal coverage of Vodafone has fallen behind its rivals in the Greater London area, where it is dropping more than twice as many calls as other companies.

The latest data from RootMetrics has found that Vodafone ranks below EE, Three and O2 in overall performance this year.

It lags both in terms of the time it takes to load a web page — more than twice that of EE or Three — and its network reliability, which was the worst in the sector. Vodafone’s dropped call rate hit 4.8 per cent during the tests, compared with 1.8 per cent for EE and 2.1 per cent for O2.
RootMetrics, a Seattle-based networks performance analyst, conducted 83,211 tests in March in an area across London and also covering Slough, Saffron Walden, Tunbridge Wells and Southend-on-Sea.

...

“The network is failing to keep pace with the competition and placed last overall according to our independent testing,” Mr Moore said.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/telecoms/article3781341.ece

d123

digp wrote: »

It lags both in terms of the time it takes to load a web page — more than twice that of EE or Three — and its network reliability, which was the worst in the sector. Vodafone’s dropped call rate hit 4.8 per cent during the tests, compared with 1.8 per cent for EE and 2.1 per cent for O2.

The same could be said for the North of England, Vodafone data quality is terrible in many areas.

NFH

EE is getting worse too, particularly in terms of general coverage because they have started decommissioning transmitters following their merger of the Orange and T-Mobile networks. This has created coverage blackspots which did not exist previously.

Three's coverage has always been behind the other networks, which is reflected in its prices; you get what you pay for.

This leaves O2 as the network I would consider as a new customer, and Giffgaff as a suitable means for many consumers to enjoy O2's network at a decent price.

SnowTiger

digp wrote: »

The signal coverage of Vodafone has fallen behind its rivals in the Greater London area, where it is dropping more than twice as many calls as other companies.

The latest data from RootMetrics has found that Vodafone ranks below EE, Three and O2 in overall performance this year.

That can't be right.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22817704:

Vodafone, the world's second largest mobile phone firm, paid no UK corporation tax for a second year running in 2012.

Vodafone said UK network investment and interest payments wiped out corporation tax liabilities for the year to April.

:rotfl:

I've always found them patchy. And they're the only network not to provide coverage where I live.

d123

NFH wrote: »

EE is getting worse too, particularly in terms of general coverage because they have started decommissioning transmitters following their merger of the Orange and T-Mobile networks. This has created coverage blackspots which did not exist previously.

Three's coverage has always been behind the other networks, which is reflected in its prices; you get what you pay for.

This leaves O2 as the network I would consider as a new customer, and Giffgaff as a suitable means for many consumers to enjoy O2's network at a decent price.

I have a slightly different take on those, 3 has a robust network with good speeds in my experience. I would agree with your take on the degradation of EE 3G.

I would never recommend O2, their current network is one fault from a total meltdown, it is quite well known in the industry that O2 are just trying to keep it together until 4G rollout as they appear to not want to spend on 3G improvements when a lot of the network will need additional work on the same base stations for 4G.

With all the problems going with an MVNO with no real customer support is just foolhardy in my opinion.

Perhaps when O2 have a successful 4G rollout and open it up to GiffGaff I might reconsider.

NFH

d123 wrote: »

3 has a robust network with good speeds in my experience.

Agreed. Where you get coverage, the 3G speed is good and reliable. However, their coverage is much worse than the other networks.

Buzby

Have to disagree - perhaps in your experience, but not mine. When they do have e odd failing, I find them quick to react and offer suitable recompense. They are also the newest network - so any coverage issues would be understandable.

Not the same excuse that can be used by Voda and o2 who've been long time players.

digp

nationally it is a poor network

Buzby

And you know this, how?

I've not read or seen any reports to substantiate your assertion - if it just your actual experience 'nationally', I'll refer you to my earlier comment.

Rory_the_Filmmaker

I'm with Vodafone and I find their website, general customer service and their actual reception to be quite poor.

I hear from numerous individuals that O2 and Orange seem to be the unanimously favoured phone network, and having a Jedi in your adverts does not validate your services.

I agree. Vodafone are rubbish. If I hadn't been with them for so long, I would immediately change to O2 or Orange.

Additionally, their data usage policies and overseas 'deals' are inadequate to say the least; I used to have 250mb on my old contract with an HTC Wildfire, now I have a pretty battered Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini with 500mb of data. Other networks give you unlimited data for better prices.

The only good thing is they gave me free unlimited data for 3 months (Vodafone Passport). But that's over now.

NFH

Rory_the_Filmmaker wrote: »

Additionally, their data usage policies and overseas 'deals' are inadequate to say the least;

Although I agree with many of your other comments, this one is the opposite of the truth. Vodafone UK has always led the way with roaming deals, including data roaming. I've yet to find a network which can beat £5/day for 25MB/day for mobile data on an aircraft for example.

One thing I recently discovered about Vodafone which really surprised me is they don't even give you proper bills, e.g. in PDF format. You have to navigate around various parts of your bill on a very cumbersome online billing system without any way to save your entire itemised bill as a single file. Orange has had this basic functionality since 2001.