Broadband, paying for service we couldn't receive

emmjay123

Hi

We've been paying for Vodafone Superfast 2 broadband for the last couple of years. Vodafone have now told us that those speeds aren't achievable at our house and want to move us to Superfast 1.

Should they refund us for the time we have been paying extra for a service we couldn't receive?

Thanks
Michael 

Ditzy_Mitzy

This is one of those situations where it certainly won't do any harm to ask.  How much were you paying a month for Superfast 2?  I ask because the two Superfast types are now identically priced.  If that was the case when you had the service then there won't be any loss.
Another price guide I found, however, lists Superfast 1 as £4 a month cheaper that Superfast 2.  Over two years, then, you're looking at £96.00.  Vodafone might not be minded to bother disputing such a sum so may well just issue a refund.  
Have there been any other issues with the service?  It used to be the case that increasing the number of broadband users on a particular exchange reduced speeds across the board.  Have your service been downgraded?  If so, did you ever receive Superfast 2 speeds?  

neilmcl

I would ask but at the end of the day you signed up the higher speed service in the first place, presumably without checking whether you could actually achieve the quoted speeds from the outset. When you first signed up were you not given the speeds that you'd get?

Sandtree

neilmcl said:

I would ask but at the end of the day you signed up the higher speed service in the first place, presumably without checking whether you could actually achieve the quoted speeds from the outset. When you first signed up were you not given the speeds that you'd get?

I thought these days they had to give you an indication of the minimum speed you'll get and you must be guaranteed to get that on average? 

Obviously some complexity comes in if you express interest in the up to 200Mb/s service, their personal speed indication is 50Mb/s but you continue to signup for the faster service rather than the 100Mb/s service that also would have given you a personal speed of 50Mb/s

Carrot007

You could still be getting faster than SF1 speeds just under the guaranteed minimum requrements of SF2, in which case maybe it would be worth staying on it.

Of course I can't believe you have never checked your speeds so probably not!

JJ_Egan

Contract usually says Up TO .

Could be line is not so good as it once was  .

Ergates

Carrot007 said:

You could still be getting faster than SF1 speeds just under the guaranteed minimum requrements of SF2, in which case maybe it would be worth staying on it.

Of course I can't believe you have never checked your speeds so probably not!

I'm willing to be that the vast majority of broadband customers have never checked their speeds, woudln't know how to check their speeds or even know that checking their speed was a thing they could do.

cx6

Assuming you could never get sf2 speeds, and the contract was a mistake from the beginning, and Voda should 1. cancel the whole sf2 contract for the time you have had it and refund everything and then 2. charge you sf1 rates for the whole same period.

emmjay123

Thanks all for your comments 

LaHostessAvecLaMostess

cx6 said:

Assuming you could never get sf2 speeds, and the contract was a mistake from the beginning, and Voda should 1. cancel the whole sf2 contract for the time you have had it and refund everything and then 2. charge you sf1 rates for the whole same period.

You're right that the contract was a mistake from the beginning but that mistake was the customers, not Vodafone's.  These speeds quoted are the average, so there is no "SF2" speed anyway.  The OP will have been quoted a rough estimate of the speed they should expect, and a minimum speed but if that is inside both the SF1 and SF2 speed then that's the customers problem.

It's also worth noting that SF1 and SF2 have different maximum upload speeds so it's entirely possible the OP was getting upload speeds in excess of the SF1 package anyway.

Alderbank

JJ_Egan said:

Contract usually says Up TO .

Could be line is not so good as it once was  .

This.
It is usually down to contention, i.e. the number of users fighting for the finite amount of bandwidth available. As more people on your exchange sign up for broadband, and as their usage goes up with availability of 4K TV, etc., the average speeds go down.
I don't use Voda but I expect they monitor speeds and have observed that because of the amount of contention local to you, your available speed is now below the permissible level for SF2.