My Speed goes UP & Down like a YoYo

[steve-b]

I live in Wirral, Merseyside UK & my internet provider is Vodafone. Since Vodafone installed Fast Fibre 500 in April 2023 I have had no end of speed problems anything from 0 to 500Mbs & back to 0Mbs any time of the day or day of the week. Today 28 June 23 has been a very bad day as it has been almost imposable to even run a speed test.

 

I have contacted Vodafone so many times about this on-going problem till I’m sick & tired of the situation. I don’t know what else I can do as I have also spoken to other internet providers & they have said that if I change to them I may still have the same situation if this is an outside environment & Vodafone have also said this to me but will not admit this is a intermitted problem.

 

I have preformed hundreds of speed tests from testmy.net & sent them to Vodafone only to be told that Vodafone do not recognise this speed test, so I’m completely up the creek with no were to go.

 

Since the fibre cable was installed I’ve also complained about the cable being very twisted, but once again I have been told this is normal even though I have contacted fibre company's & searched on-line & all the information I got said the fibre cable SHOULD NOT BE TWISTED, Vodafone don't want to know.

 

If you look at the 3 speed test files attached you can see the extreme speeds I am getting.

 

Any help or suggestions from anyone would be very much appreciated.

[xs1]

i would suspect a router/modem issue. Have you tried plugging in directly & eliminating the router from the equation?

[steve-b]

xs1,thanks for your reply, when you said “Have I tried plugging in directly to eliminating the router” do you mean to plug my PC directly into the ONT box where the fibre cable comes onto my property, if so how would the internet work without all the settings & Wi-Fi that go though the router?

 

I have had a second new router supplied by Vodafone but that didn’t make any difference, still the same problem.

[Pgoodwin1]

Ask friends or neighbors that have the same plan as you whether their performance is similar

[xs1]

On 6/29/2023 at 5:17 AM, steve-b said:

xs1,thanks for your reply, when you said “Have I tried plugging in directly to eliminating the router” do you mean to plug my PC directly into the ONT box where the fibre cable comes onto my property, if so how would the internet work without all the settings & Wi-Fi that go though the router?

 

I have had a second new router supplied by Vodafone but that didn’t make any difference, still the same problem.

 

The ont only supplies an IP address to the modem. You are correct that your Wi-Fi would not work in that case but at least it would rule out the routers themselves. On my setup I have an ethernet cable from the ont going to my aftermarket ASUS router. The ISP supplied router/modem is not always necessary. Although you did mention you have a second router and the issue persists, so it may not be a router problem per se.. I would still try plugging directly into the ont and see what kind of speeds you get. . At least if it's still terrible you can tell them it's an issue on their end. You also mentioned that they don't recognize testmy.net as a supported test platform, have you tried other speed tests?

[steve-b]

Thanks again for your reply, I have tried other speed tests but as they only show a speed in fingers & you can't see when the speed fluctuates or on a speed dial what is happening with the speed when the dial indicator hovers up & down or stops for a moment which is why I like speedtest.net that give a much better view of what is going on with the speed.

 

As far as asking others around me the only neighbour that is also on fibre is next door who have been away for 3 months & only came home the other day & I haven’t had chance to ask them yet & if they had been here I would have asked then weeks ago but just my luck no one else that I know has fibre.

[Boondog]

Bit late, but I have a related problem.

Also recently got FTTH fibre 500/50 from Vodafone Ireland, with the same router THG3000 (a.k.a. Gigabox).

First thing I did was throw out that Gigabox router, as it cannot split wifi/SSID  into 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

And there are plenty of other complaints about that router when you look on the web.

Replaced it with an Asus RT-AX86U (rated AX5700) and a 10m Cat7 cable from ONT to a central location in the hall downstairs.

I would definitely advise steve-b to replace his router!

 

To show you the difference between those routers, I ran a number of speedtests, using a Lenovo T440p laptop, Windows 7/SP1, Intel AC-7260 wifi card.

Results using WiFi (Down/Up Mbps): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Vodafone Gigabox --- Asus RT-AX86U
https://www.speed.io/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Result: 24.6/51.7 ------ 400.6/51.7
https://testmy.net/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Result: 25/25.7 ------- 28/25.8
https://speedof.me/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Result: 33.24/34. ----- 32.11/29.14
https://speedsmart.net/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Result: 78.38/52.05 --- 162.9/52.25
https://www.broadbandsearch.net/speed-test . . . . . . . . . . .Result: 182.1/51.0 ---- 398/51.8
https://fast.com/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Result: 280/55 -------- 310/55
https://fiber.google.com/speedtest/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Result: 326.7/51.5 ---- 402.5/51.5
https://www.earthlink.net/resources/internet-speed-test/ Result: 393.2/51.4 ---- 414.2/51.7
https://www.speedtest.net/ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Result: 402.80/51.72 -- 290.12/51.66

 

All Vodafone tests were run as a group, within minutes of each other.

The Asus tests were run the same, but a few days later.

For some strange reason the testmy.net tests stick out like a sore thumb, as does speedof.me.

I ran testmy.net again yesterday as a 12 hour test. Visit https://testmy.net/quickstats/Boondog to query my stats.

No idea why these results are so low.

Not sure if I have a justified gripe with Vodafone, as (so far) the only problem I have is with a Fire TV Stick 4K Max that buffers when watching BBC iPlayer.

That Fire TV Stick runs of the 5GHz wifi. 

I did not have this buffer-problem before when we only had ~35Mbps internet (from PureTelecom) via copper wire.