Vodafone Broadband (or not...)

Jjay

VODAFONE BROADBAND - YOU DECIDE!

We recently tried to switch our home broadband from a provider who was putting their prices up to Vodafone which had come up as a 'best buy' on the MSE website.

As a couple working from home, with elderly relatives on call, it was imperative that the switch went through without a hitch. So much so infact, we arranged the switch date for the beginning of a week we had taken holiday so as not to impact on our working arrangements.

Switch day came and went, then the next then the next. Lengthy phonecalls, messages and tweets were exchanged but Vodafone were incapable of diagnosing why they were unable to connect what had been a perfectly working broadband with our previous provider. 

After a week, our working weeks looming again and no indication of what the problem was or whether/when it could be fixed, we cancelled our order in absolute disgust and now have a standard three week wait to be reconnected to our old provider. This will cause an inordinate amount of trouble in terms of our working arrangements and caring responsibilities in the meantime. Lesson learned!

There may sometimes be merit in being 'so far along you may as well stick with it' but in this case, we hadn't made a single iota of progress whatsoever with Vodafone. Sure, whilst 'very sorry', every operative we spoke to on the phone or by message was essentially clueless of the issues so each time we had to start the explanations all over again. Talk about the left hand not knowing what the right was doing. 

We left because we had no confidence whatsoever that Vodafone would provide us with a service. I should say that the initial 'deal' advertised via the MSE link (£60 Amazon voucher) disappeared as soon as there was a problem - Vodafone stated they would have to 'rebuild our order' at which point we were quoted more than the provider we had left!

Beware.

Customer service will play a far more important part in my choice of utility providers in future and Vodafone will not be figuring in any of my future deliberations.

Penguin_

If you're a couple working from home, I am not sure you should be relying on residential broadband?

Jjay

We are employees, not a business. On the day of the first lockdown, everyone told to work from home (which will now continue to be the norm for many) didn't all change over to business broadband. It is perfectly normal.

In any case - a switch day should be a switch day, yes?

Neil_Jones

Jjay said:

We are employees, not a business. On the day of the first lockdown, everyone told to work from home (which will now continue to be the norm for many) didn't all change over to business broadband. It is perfectly normal.

That was the exception to the rule and it was technically against most ISP T&Cs for home broadband to be used for work purposes.  However under the circumstances at the time most providers just looked the other way and said yeah fine, whatever.  Its different if something gets mandated by government/law, but another thing if a customer is using domestic broadband for business and there's no order from "above" as it were that this has to be the case.

Two years on though the whole WFH is a different story.

But all of that aside, the issues mentioned wouldn't have been a problem in a business broadband arrangement because they would have pulled out all the stops to get it working come what may.  On domestic packages you are back of the queue for any issues such as these.

This is less likely a Vodafone issue as such but more likely an Openreach problem.  But you have no contact with Openreach, its up to Vodafone to do all the chasing with them.

Jjay

Two years on though the whole WFH is a different story.

I can't see that's policeable but I'll take your word for it. They never mentioned us needing the line for homeworking was against the T&Cs. And there were 3 x 2 hour phonecalls!

This is less likely a Vodafone issue as such but more likely an Openreach problem.  But you have no contact with Openreach, its up to Vodafone to do all the chasing with them.

The line is connected and was switched on the right day. Vodafone confirmed the problem was not with Openreach but with them/their software/the router/incompetence ... or something else but not the line itself.

QrizB

My experience of Vodafone VDSL has been faultless.

Took a MSE deal to switch to Voda in the autumn. Their router arrived in the post within a couple of days. I plugged in the router on the day it went live, it worked fine. Haven't had any reason to contact them since.

matelodave

QrizB said:

My experience of Vodafone VDSL has been faultless.

Took a MSE deal to switch to Voda in the autumn. Their router arrived in the post within a couple of days. I plugged in the router on the day it went live, it worked fine. Haven't had any reason to contact them since.

Same here - no complaints so far

grandadgolfer

Vodafone are great no problems here either

flaneurs_lobster

My experience with an attempted switch to Vodafone BB was exactly that described by @Jjay. 

Getting a successful switch done is a lottery, albeit one that usually seems to go the way of the punter. When it doesn't work then the reason why Vodafone (and others) are so cheap becomes apparent.

skycatcher

QrizB said:

My experience of Vodafone VDSL has been faultless.

Took a MSE deal to switch to Voda in the autumn. Their router arrived in the post within a couple of days. I plugged in the router on the day it went live, it worked fine. Haven't had any reason to contact them since.

Same here plus just received the £105 amazon voucher from broadband genie!

TimSynths

I wfh and there is no way I would risk a switch, ring up and negotiate a better price, but I couldn't risk being without a fast connection, esp as my office is now 270 miles away.