Vodafone Broadband dropping out for 5 weeks... advice on what to do next...

wallofbeans

gambleruk said:

Yes I presume it will be that box, ask them to plug your line into a different socket in laymans terms, not quite sure what the technical term is for it, every line is assigned it's own socket and as soon as the engineer went to the box and assigned a different one my problem was solved, took 2 months to get to that stage though after 3 different routers and a few visits so think it might be a last resort for some reason. They also ended up sending a what they called a senior engineer eventually so maybe he had come across this problem before and was authorised to change it ?

6 weeks in, 4 open reach visits - two of them to my house, and at last it is working...

The last guy from Open Reach was amazing. He did all the checks and all seemed fine, but trusted I wasn't making it up or exagerating. He kept looking, testing again - and then the drop out occured while he was plugged in!

This meant it definitely wasn't my router. He then said pretty much what you did (with a bit more tech lingo) and went to the green box at the end of my road to plug me into a different socket. Half an hour later he comes back - the whole socket is knackered, everyone plugged into it (and it could be 400+ houses) will be having similar issues and he's sent a request (to another company) to replace it completely. But in the meantime, plugged me into a new one. 

Because of this socket being faulty, the system had also capped by speed to 25mbps! But he said it would reset within 24 hours. And if it didn't I should call him and he will do it manually. 

And after some teething problems.. aparrently Vodofone swiched me on at this new port and then changed it half an hour later, and I had no internet at all...  But I text the Open Reach guy and he was back within the hour and realised what they had done in India and sorted it out. 

That was yesterday. It was working great when he left and all night. Still slow speeds though. And then this morning my download and upload speeds have more than doubled and its steady with no drop outs!

All down to you all helping, me pushing and pushing Vodafone, and this one Open Reach guy being incredbly nice. He's even said to text him if I have any further problems. Hurrah!

Thank you all!

Now to complain about how awful this process was and what Vodafone are going to do about the 6 weeks I had with intermitent and very slow internet. 

gambleruk

wallofbeans said:

gambleruk said:

Yes I presume it will be that box, ask them to plug your line into a different socket in laymans terms, not quite sure what the technical term is for it, every line is assigned it's own socket and as soon as the engineer went to the box and assigned a different one my problem was solved, took 2 months to get to that stage though after 3 different routers and a few visits so think it might be a last resort for some reason. They also ended up sending a what they called a senior engineer eventually so maybe he had come across this problem before and was authorised to change it ?

6 weeks in, 4 open reach visits - two of them to my house, and at last it is working...

The last guy from Open Reach was amazing. He did all the checks and all seemed fine, but trusted I wasn't making it up or exagerating. He kept looking, testing again - and then the drop out occured while he was plugged in!

This meant it definitely wasn't my router. He then said pretty much what you did (with a bit more tech lingo) and went to the green box at the end of my road to plug me into a different socket. Half an hour later he comes back - the whole socket is knackered, everyone plugged into it (and it could be 400+ houses) will be having similar issues and he's sent a request (to another company) to replace it completely. But in the meantime, plugged me into a new one. 

Because of this socket being faulty, the system had also capped by speed to 25mbps! But he said it would reset within 24 hours. And if it didn't I should call him and he will do it manually. 

And after some teething problems.. aparrently Vodofone swiched me on at this new port and then changed it half an hour later, and I had no internet at all...  But I text the Open Reach guy and he was back within the hour and realised what they had done in India and sorted it out. 

That was yesterday. It was working great when he left and all night. Still slow speeds though. And then this morning my download and upload speeds have more than doubled and its steady with no drop outs!

All down to you all helping, me pushing and pushing Vodafone, and this one Open Reach guy being incredbly nice. He's even said to text him if I have any further problems. Hurrah!

Thank you all!

Now to complain about how awful this process was and what Vodafone are going to do about the 6 weeks I had with intermitent and very slow internet. 

Sorry for my lack of tech lingo   but glad you have got it sorted. I ended up with 3 months free broadband of memory as compensation and like I said it has run great ever since.

wallofbeans

An update in case anyone is interested.

After six weeks of awful broadband that cut out every couple of hours at least, I still had to argue quite hard for any kind of compensation. They offered me £10 at first, but I pushed for at least 6 weeks worth of cost refunded - and got it. 

It all worked well for a month. And then the issues started up again, and I'm now back trying to get them to sort it out again.

My question is -- will this issue be any different if I switch supplier? I am tempted to leave as this experience with Vodafone Broadband has the been the worst I've ever had, but I wonder if this is more an Open Reach issue? And if I go elsewhere, I'll just get the same problem but a different customer service number to call?

I was with Talk Talk before this, and had only a minor issue in two years, but was that Talk Talk being better or just there weren't any Open Reach issues at that point? 

I could switch to Virgin Media I suppose, but everything else filters through Open Reach I assume?

QrizB

wallofbeans said:

My question is -- will this issue be any different if I switch supplier? I am tempted to leave as this experience with Vodafone Broadband has the been the worst I've ever had, but I wonder if this is more an Open Reach issue? And if I go elsewhere, I'll just get the same problem but a different customer service number to call?

If you don't mind paying boutique ISP prices (from £35 a month), A&A have a decent reputation for getting issues like this fixed.

https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/we-will-fix-your-line/

wallofbeans

QrizB said:

wallofbeans said:

My question is -- will this issue be any different if I switch supplier? I am tempted to leave as this experience with Vodafone Broadband has the been the worst I've ever had, but I wonder if this is more an Open Reach issue? And if I go elsewhere, I'll just get the same problem but a different customer service number to call?

If you don't mind paying boutique ISP prices (from £35 a month), A&A have a decent reputation for getting issues like this fixed.

https://www.aa.net.uk/broadband/we-will-fix-your-line/

They sound great - but it would be at least £45 per month for me, and that's more than double what I'm paying now... 

And - is that a NO to my question then? It seems all but Virgin go via Open Reach, so even if I go with somebody else who would work hard to resolve the problem, I can't get away from the problem unless I go with Virgin...