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Hey folks,
I currently have an FTTP line provided by Spitfire, on their 1000/115 package.
I have been with them for over a year, and initially went with them as I'd had great experiences in the past with their FTTC.
However over the last six months, during 9-5 on working days, the line's download speed drops to almost unusable levels.
I'm talking drops from a solid 940/115 in the evening and night to below 15/110 throughout the day, all measured by my Openwrt router directly.
Oddly enough, the upload is completely unaffected.
As you'd imagine with two of us working from home (in IT), this is awful.
Video calls drop, accessing cloud services becomes painful, the works.
and as soon as work is over at 5pm, the download returns to 900+mbps like clockwork!
I've tried contacting Spitfire a few times now, but each time they blame my router or 'excessive usage' and refuse to help further, even when I provide detailed usage and speedtest stats captured by the router to show the issues!
and of course, using their router it's exactly the same.
I understand that GPON FTTP is a shared medium with only limited bandwidth per node, but this is unbelievably bad?
Especially for a so called 'business' service!
Basically I'm at my wit's end here, and am wondering if anyone knows how I should go about getting this resolved.
Cheers!
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to below 15/110 throughout the day
15/110 should of itself be fairly workable. I have run 4 zoom devices over 30Mb/s with very good results. But given that this is supposed to be a 1000M line, it is running into substantial contention, which means that the network is more than clogged. If it is being restored at 5pm promptly, I would suspect that you are being heavily throttled to a level more appropriate for ADSL. Odd for an outfit which professes to be a business supplier.
I suggest you check out fair usage policies as the first move and check that you are not violating them and that your usage of the network is compliant with reasonable expectations for whatever package you have bought. After that, move or argue your case.
Edited by DFScale (Tue 28-Jan-25 16:28:23)
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Hey folks,
I currently have an FTTP line provided by Spitfire, on their 1000/115 package.
I have been with them for over a year, and initially went with them as I'd had great experiences in the past with their FTTC.
However over the last six months, during 9-5 on working days, the line's download speed drops to almost unusable levels.
I'm talking drops from a solid 940/115 in the evening and night to below 15/110 throughout the day, all measured by my Openwrt router directly.
Oddly enough, the upload is completely unaffected.
As you'd imagine with two of us working from home (in IT), this is awful.
Video calls drop, accessing cloud services becomes painful, the works.
and as soon as work is over at 5pm, the download returns to 900+mbps like clockwork!
two questions does this happen in the weekend?
Have you done a direct connection with a pc to the ont, just rule out your equipment doing something funky ?
I've tried contacting Spitfire a few times now, but each time they blame my router or 'excessive usage' and refuse to help further, even when I provide detailed usage and speedtest stats captured by the router to show the issues!
Cheers!
According to this, if what cs has said to you is correct, you would have been contacted by spitfire about usage.
https://www.spitfire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/0...
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two questions does this happen in the weekend?
Have you done a direct connection with a pc to the ont, just rule out your equipment doing something funky ?
I've tried contacting Spitfire a few times now, but each time they blame my router or 'excessive usage' and refuse to help further, even when I provide detailed usage and speedtest stats captured by the router to show the issues!
Cheers!
According to this, if what cs has said to you is correct, you would have been contacted by spitfire about usage.
https://www.spitfire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/0...
It doesn't happen at the weekend, nor over Christmas. Definitely only during working times!
I've tried connecting to the ONT and running PPPOE on my laptop too, and the speeds remain the same.
By excessive usage, I don't mean a violation of the FUP by the way, certainly haven't been contacted for that!
We only really use just over 1.5TB in a month, which they have no issue with 
They meant it as in local network congestion, for example downloading something huge while the speed test was running.
I've given them another ring today too, still awaiting a response as of this post...
Edited by nyctomanica (Tue 28-Jan-25 17:00:05)
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Here's a screenshot of speedtest tracker
It tests hourly at hh:22, directly from the router.
You can see the massive dips in download during the day 5x a week, and relatively consistent uploads throughout unless I'm putting something into gdrive (or my NAS is doing a backup job)
Edited by nyctomanica (Tue 28-Jan-25 17:07:23)
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When you bought the service, what was the minimum download speed they quoted you? From their response of "excessive usage" it sounds like they are throttling you, have you got them to admit this?
How often are you running automatic speed tests?
Edited by jpm (Tue 28-Jan-25 17:14:41)
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I think I didn't make myself very clear, sorry!
I've asked them whether they were applying any throttling by email, which they advised they weren't.
Haven't received anything about excessive usage by email or letter!
By excessive usage, I meant to say that they were checking to make sure I had no other high bandwidth stuff using the internet at the time, such as downloads whilst I was running speed tests.
Those are hourly
I don't recall being quoted a minimum speed, just that this was a 'Premium' service with packet priority over that of normal connections.
Edited by nyctomanica (Tue 28-Jan-25 17:25:00)
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How often are you running automatic speed tests?
thats what i was interested after seeing the graph. That said, spitfire is meant to be a business isp, so i have some issue if they throttling him because of say hourly speedtests.
Either the pon is congested or theres some funky traffic management going on.
[edited for a stupid typo]
I would have raised a fault and gone that route instead of showing them a nice graph.......
Edited by Taras (Tue 28-Jan-25 19:18:53)
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It sounds like they're not willing to look into this for you, even that you have asked repeatedly.
If you're out of contract, switch provider. Maybe they will do something... !
- Tony Sutton
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Try and find out what the minimum speed should be as this would be a cause to terminate the contract.
If their other customers are causing this then they need to take action against them so it doesn't impact all other customers who are sticking to the FUP.
OPNSense on Topton N100 - SWISH Fibre 900
NextDNS (subscription) - Unifi for Wifi
My Broadband Ping |
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I would also let Spitfire know that you're discussing their lack of support on what is considered by many to be the best broadband forum in the UK.
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How often are you running automatic speed tests?
thats what i was interested after seeing the graph. That said, spitfire is meant to be a business isp, so i have some issue if they throttling him because of say hourly speedtests.
Hourly is not too much of a problem, but I've seen people posting about speed issues and they're on a gigabit+ service running automatic testing every five minutes, consuming nearly a terabyte of data each day just in speed tests.
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How often are you running automatic speed tests?
thats what i was interested after seeing the graph. That said, spitfire is meant to be a business isp, so i have some issue if they throttling him because of say hourly speedtests.
Hourly is not too much of a problem, but I've seen people posting about speed issues and they're on a gigabit+ service running automatic testing every five minutes, consuming nearly a terabyte of data each day just in speed tests.
and it can be deemed "automatic, robotic " and can been deemed to be detrimental to the t&cs...... But in general if you have speed issues and you've tested a couple of days, and you have enough of a pattern - simply raise a fault.
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I've given them another ring today too, still awaiting a response as of this post...
have you raised this as a fault?
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Hourly is not too much of a problem, but I've seen people posting about speed issues and they're on a gigabit+ service running automatic testing every five minutes, consuming nearly a terabyte of data each day just in speed tests.
I agree, sometimes there IS a thing as too much: and this overuse of automated speed testers in this way is getting plainly ridiculous. What a total waste of bandwidth.
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Anybody interested in metrics for fault diagnostics would be better served by graphing their throughput and looking for flat-tops to the lines that are below the service they've subscribed to. We have had people call in to complain about "slow internet" and when you look at the graphs and see a straight line at 100Mbps from 09:30 through to 16:00 on a 500Mbps service it's fairly easy to know there's an issue (most likely an interface is running at 100Mbps).
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I have raised this as a fault today, and seem to have gotten through to someone interested in helping!
They've confirmed that I'm not being throttled, and have asked for speedtest results using their own Ookla server and BT Wholesale's test to show both the normal and problematic speeds.
Hopefully they will be able to sort this once and for all, will keep this thread updated
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Hourly is not too much of a problem, but I've seen people posting about speed issues and they're on a gigabit+ service running automatic testing every five minutes, consuming nearly a terabyte of data each day just in speed tests.
I agree, sometimes there IS a thing as too much: and this overuse of automated speed testers in this way is getting plainly ridiculous. What a total waste of bandwidth.
Every five minutes?! Jeepers, that is a waste!
I've only been running these hourly ones to keep a log of this issue, normally I'll only run one every day unless something feels off!
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Yes complete waste. Sorry there was no implication that you were doing this.
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Goodluck with the BT Wholesale test - it seems to have failed! I get the front screen, press start and NOTHING.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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Goodluck with the BT Wholesale test - it seems to have failed! I get the front screen, press start and NOTHING. Thought I had read somewhere that its been retired.
Edit - After posting I've just seen the link from Iniltous
Edited by PCJM40 (Wed 29-Jan-25 16:09:29)
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Goodluck with the BT Wholesale test - it seems to have failed! I get the front screen, press start and NOTHING.
Yup, I noticed that when getting the results of a dip to 30mbps earlier.
Ended up using this one instead, hopefully they accept that!
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If you can demonstrate to the powers that be, results from a 'basket' of speed testers / servers then it strengthens your case. Perhaps alternate /rotate the one you use during the testing period.
You don't need hundreds of tests. A reasonable amount proof is all that is needed.
Do you have an account manager at this outfit?
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If you can demonstrate to the powers that be, results from a 'basket' of speed testers / servers then it strengthens your case. Perhaps alternate /rotate the one you use during the testing period.
You don't need hundreds of tests. A reasonable amount proof is all that is needed.
Do you have an account manager at this outfit?
Everything that Pheasant has said, plus.
make sure also you test at the same time each day with the same testers.
So say 8:30; 9.30; 13:30; 15:30; 17:30; 19:30; 21:30.. for one week (inc weekends) and that should be enough unless they have asked for more.
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I've finally got somewhere!
Spitfire have now let me know that this is an issue with PON congestion, as my street has a pretty high takeup of Openreach fibre services.
This was revealed after testing using their supplied router (which they can remotely manage) revealed the exact same issue, and they checked with OR.
Unfortunately however, I have been informed that Openreach will not consider congestion a fault, and if I were to request an engineer's visit, I may be charged upwards of £200 as they would not find one.
However, do you think it would be possible to ask an engineer to switch the line to a different PON node if they were to visit?
The pole serving the house has two splitter nodes on top, one with 12 ports which I am connected to, and one with 4 that are currently unused.
The 12 port one is quite full, with only a few ports left available (if that's what the little nubbins are).
I'm wondering, if it IS possible, that changing to the other may resolve this once and for all?
As it would only be shared with 3 other lines.
and if so, may that engineer's visit gamble be worth it?
Please tell me if I'm talking out my backside here, I've only read about this recently on an old thread here!
Edited by nyctomanica (Thu 30-Jan-25 15:43:51)
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The ports on the CBT are likely all on the same split, and Openreach will plan the mapping of addresses to splitters during the deployment, moving to a new splitter won't be an option.
What was your minimum guaranteed speed? I'd argue that the speeds your seeing are a fault and Openreach need to resolve the problem, if one or two customers are wiping out everybody else then those customers need to be managed by their ISP.
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Below 15 on a 1000 circuit is by any definition unsatisfactory performance. [What 2%?] I would take the visit with evidence of the speeds before and after and really push back over any charge. It's a fault if to the ordinary punter it does not work anywhere near to spec, never mind the ISP's definition or Openreach's definition of a fault
When I moved from ADSL to FTTC, I asked for router settings [more than once] and got told ADSL settings [every time] despite saying it was FTTC and that those were ADSL settings. In the end we had a visit, which at least showed that the line was working and they wanted £160. In the end, I bought a new router, which worked out of the box, copied the settings I needed and used the new router as a wireless access point. I pushed back against the charge, twice, on the grounds that City Fibre had failed to provide useable settings. The second time, I told them I would take it to the Ombudsman and they backed down.
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Ah, that makes sense.
I've pinged off an email asking the minimum guaranteed speed, as I couldn't find one in any previous communication.
I agree that falling below the minimum should be classed as a fault, and it also can't be just me suffering with this issue, given that it's shared!
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Hi, I've finally got somewhere!
Spitfire have now let me know that this is an issue with PON congestion, as my street has a pretty high takeup of Openreach fibre services.
This was revealed after testing using their supplied router (which they can remotely manage) revealed the exact same issue, and they checked with OR.
Unfortunately however, I have been informed that Openreach will not consider congestion a fault, and if I were to request an engineer's visit, I may be charged upwards of £200 as they would not find one.
However, do you think it would be possible to ask an engineer to switch the line to a different PON node if they were to visit?
The pole serving the house has two splitter nodes on top, one with 12 ports which I am connected to, and one with 4 that are currently unused.
The 12 port one is quite full, with only a few ports left available (if that's what the little nubbins are).
I'm wondering, if it IS possible, that changing to the other may resolve this once and for all?
As it would only be shared with 3 other lines.
and if so, may that engineer's visit gamble be worth it?
Please tell me if I'm talking out my backside here, I've only read about this recently on an old thread here! For Openreach provided FTTP, in general, the splitter is underground somewhere else in the locality, not on the pole and each of those individual connectors you see on the pole has its own fibre going to it from the splitter which will serve up to 30 properties. The odds are that both connector blocks will be fed from the same splitter.
In addition to the physical issue, moving you to a different PON would require configuration data to be updated which the engineer in the street probably wouldn't have access to.
The only solution Openreach have would be to take the decision to split the PON (which would be taken at a local level), or get round to rolling out XGS-PON (which would be taken at a national level). Your solutions are to wait for that, or find an alternative internet connection which doesn't relay on Openreach FTTP.
Having said all that, it is quite surprising that your PON is overloaded during the day but not in the evenings - that suggests a high density of home workers which is probably quite unusual.
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If it’s PON congestion , before accepting what your ISP has said , I’d check with some of your very near neighbours, do they have the same issues at the same times , immediate neighbours from the same CBT are definitely on the same PON , if they don’t suffer the same congestion at the same time , then you can call BS on your ISP diagnosis , if a neighbour using a different ISP ( EE , BT etc ) don’t have similar issues then you know whatever your issue is , its not the PON .
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Hi, Ah, that makes sense.
I've pinged off an email asking the minimum guaranteed speed, as I couldn't find one in any previous communication.
I agree that falling below the minimum should be classed as a fault, and it also can't be just me suffering with this issue, given that it's shared!
For Openreach, the minima are detailed in SIN506.
AAISP has a summary which includes these and Cityfibre's also: here.
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I've finally got somewhere!
Spitfire have now let me know that this is an issue with PON congestion, as my street has a pretty high takeup of Openreach fibre services.
This was revealed after testing using their supplied router (which they can remotely manage) revealed the exact same issue, and they checked with OR.
Unfortunately however, I have been informed that Openreach will not consider congestion a fault, and if I were to request an engineer's visit, I may be charged upwards of £200 as they would not find one.
However, do you think it would be possible to ask an engineer to switch the line to a different PON node if they were to visit?
The pole serving the house has two splitter nodes on top, one with 12 ports which I am connected to, and one with 4 that are currently unused.
The 12 port one is quite full, with only a few ports left available (if that's what the little nubbins are).
I'm wondering, if it IS possible, that changing to the other may resolve this once and for all?
As it would only be shared with 3 other lines.
and if so, may that engineer's visit gamble be worth it?
Please tell me if I'm talking out my backside here, I've only read about this recently on an old thread here!
Are you getting anywhere with this?
I don’t buy their PON congestion excuse. I reckon the congestion is firmly within their network.
Unless you happen to have a ton of really, really heavy duty work-hours downloaders on your residential PON service that is.
It’s just too convenient an excuse and in reality ties in with business hours congestion in their network.
I think they’re fobbing you off big time, hoping you’ll accept the excuse or not risk it! If it was me I’d do what most of Gen Z does these days and take my gripe to their social media.
https://x.com/spitfireupdates?s=21
I’d also go contractual on them. Dual pronged attack…😎😅
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I think I read on here someone who was on the same PON as a home worker who did video stuff for BT Sport that had two gigabit Openreach FTTP connections to their house and was load balancing between them which made things unusable, if I find the post I'll add a link.
Here it is https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/getting-mov...
Edited by jpm (Fri 31-Jan-25 16:55:53)
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Don’t worry I remember the one quite clearly. Either way this is something the supplier should be proactively sorting it. I’d be on to the account manager in a heartbeat and thumping the table metaphorically.
In reality I’d call them out for breach and would have withheld payment. I know that’s not everyone’s cuppa but I’ve done it quite successfully. Even when I’m being threatened with a four figure bill.
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If it’s PON congestion , before accepting what your ISP has said , I’d check with some of your very near neighbours, do they have the same issues at the same times , immediate neighbours from the same CBT are definitely on the same PON , if they don’t suffer the same congestion at the same time , then you can call BS on your ISP diagnosis , if a neighbour using a different ISP ( EE , BT etc ) don’t have similar issues then you know whatever your issue is , its not the PON .
I was just about to suggest this too. You must test it in the same way .. so same testers and with in minutes of each other - so like 12:01 and neighbour 12:02. You don't want the same time because you are then fighting for 2.5gbits/1.25gbits
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If this was PON congestion - and it is very rare, hence why I’m dubious it’s a convenient fob off by Spitfire, the higher speed tiers will be disproportionately affected / more noticeable - add to the fact that these tiers are on average only 5-10% of subscribers.
Saying that if the PON was *so* incredibly congested or oversubscribed to be running at 1.6% of nominal download throughput - there’d be no need for coordinated speed tests with neighbours. Everyone’s internet would suck so badly they’d (hopefully) instantly notice.
Saying that many folks - other than home based workers like the OP - or retired people generally aren’t sitting on their broadband connections for long periods in the middle of the M-F working week. So if they’re generally say watching Netflix at 10pm they won’t have a scooby…
Edited by Pheasant (Sat 01-Feb-25 09:27:53)
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Although it’s not the case that it’s a simple mathematical division, in the worst case scenario , and the splitter had the defacto maximum number members/active users (30) then the 2.4Gb download bandwidth shared equally amongst them is around 80Mb , the OP stated their real world performance D/L drops to less than 25% of that , and in reality, chances are there are many fewer that 30 users , although if on a new build estates that has no alternative to OR FTTP then take could be towards that , but as average take up is around 35% , 10 users on the PON is more realistic assumption and therefore 240Mb average bandwidth per user , that’s before dynamic bandwidth allocation, and the extremely unlikely situation of all these users being intensive downloaders during business hours , given that , the possibility of PON congestion is remote albeit can’t be completely dismissed.
I’d agree that coordinating speed tests is overkill, the answer to a simple question , to near neighbours , of ‘ how useless is your internet , 9-5 ‘ will be sufficient and should the answer be ‘its fine’ , or ‘I’m at work’ so it’s not used during those times’ , suggests the ISP is not really engaging with the OP’s issue , obviously if the neighbours also confirm very poor performance then there may be something OR need to investigate, assuming the neighbour isn’t also with the OP’s ISP, but even that requires the OP’s ISP to engage with OR .
Edited by Iniltous (Sat 01-Feb-25 11:16:14)
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If this was PON congestion - and it is very rare, hence why I’m dubious it’s a convenient fob off by Spitfire, the higher speed tiers will be disproportionately affected / more noticeable - add to the fact that these tiers are on average only 5-10% of subscribers.
Saying that if the PON was *so* incredibly congested or oversubscribed to be running at 1.6% of nominal download throughput - there’d be no need for coordinated speed tests with neighbours. Everyone’s internet would suck so badly they’d (hopefully) instantly notice.
if it was a congested pon then yes you are right but if spitfire, is at fault you'd know within a day what is happening, why doing a couple of nearly in sync tests will tell you a good picture of whats going on
Saying that many folks - other than home based workers like the OP - or retired people generally aren’t sitting on their broadband connections for long periods in the middle of the M-F working week. So if they’re generally say watching Netflix at 10pm they won’t have a scooby…
and if you are a gigabit user would they even notice 100mbits missing in normal use (not downloading). With normal webrowsing with a media rich site, 20mbits is more than enough
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In light of the lack of any useful support from Spitfire the fairest thing for them to do is release the OP from their contract so they can try another ISP.
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Too right. A proper business ISP should be on the ball with this, otherwise why are you paying a premium for utterly rubbish service?
I’ve walked for less. Unfortunately there are quite a few “cowboy” business ISP operators: it’s very simple either you sort, or I walk.
You just have to brave enough (and be prepared to contractually) call their bluff!
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Too right. A proper business ISP should be on the ball with this, otherwise why are you paying a premium for utterly rubbish service?
I’ve walked for less. Unfortunately there are quite a few “cowboy” business ISP operators: it’s very simple either you sort, or I walk.
You just have to brave enough (and be prepared to contractually) call their bluff!
Fully agree. The performance is way worse than can be explained by contention in the immediate vicinity as explained so cogently by Iniltous. And contention on a more distant scale would have even less impact.
So on that understanding, it's a case of collect the evidence and give Spitfire time [14 days?] to shape up or be sacked without contract penalties. And do it in writing with an adequate explanation than can be referred to in the inevitable dispute.
My money is all the more on Spitfire throttling OP with throttling speeds appropriate to ADSL.
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No way is this PON congestion. Bandwidth usage in general is much higher in the evenings, so it would be even worse in the evenings if it was.
It's also extremely telling this is a business ISP and the congestion is worse in business hours.
I'd bet it is some OR/BTw <> Spitfire handover link (can't remember the name of the products these days) being overloaded because they didn't want to pay more for the 10G vs 1G one only having a relatively small number of customers to split the cost on compared to residential ISPs, and probably an extended lead time to upgrade?
Or it could just be general congestion on their transit or what not but I'd assume that is much more fixable and they wouldn't want all their customers upset.
Why is the OP with this ISP in the first place btw? I would be moving straight away personally given some of the responses from them. Life is too short.
Edited by mr_mojo (Sat 01-Feb-25 22:23:36)
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Plus isn't GPON supposed to be load balanced so that under contention the bandwidth gets split equally across all 30 customers, giving a minimum downstream rate of around 60Mbit?
If that is true then the contention would have to be at the 10Gbit fibre further up the chain, which would mean everyone across several different PONs are having performance issues and that SHOULD trigger a capacity upgrade.
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Well, I'm back at square one with them.
When I brought up the SIN506 minimum speeds of 110mbps for this service, I was transferred to another *much* less helpful person, who simply said
"This is an up-to service, therefore we have no minimum speed guarantees. Furthermore, we have run tests from our end and determined that there is no problem, so you WILL be charged if you decide to escalate this to our supplier."
Grrrr...
I've had enough of them, especially as this morning I was trying to grab files off a server at a blistering speed of 20mbps...
Looking into contacting the account manager now, to find out what the fees for cancellation before the contract is done are.
I should have known better than to go for a 24mo contract!
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90% OF THE REMAINING TERM FEES
Aghhhh!!!
Hopefully the account manager can sort this right out, especially as my neighbours have *no issues* with speed drops during the day (on Sky FTTP)
https://www.spitfire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/0...
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It's time to remind them of their obligations under consumer law. If they insist it's PON congestion then call their bluff on it - get another service installed under the agreement that if it works fine then they release you from the contract. They have nothing to lose unless they are bluffing.
They also need to be reminded that they've already admitted to observing the same problem when they sent you a test router.
Also if they are refusing to do anything ask for a deadlock letter and go to ADR.
Edited by jpm (Tue 04-Feb-25 13:24:32)
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90% OF THE REMAINING TERM FEES
Aghhhh!!!
Hopefully the account manager can sort this right out, especially as my neighbours have *no issues* with speed drops during the day (on Sky FTTP)
https://www.spitfire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/0...
Are you signed up as an individual or business?
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Well, I'm back at square one with them.
When I brought up the SIN506 minimum speeds of 110mbps for this service, I was transferred to another *much* less helpful person, who simply said
"This is an up-to service, therefore we have no minimum speed guarantees. Furthermore, we have run tests from our end and determined that there is no problem, so you WILL be charged if you decide to escalate this to our supplier."
Grrrr...
I've had enough of them, especially as this morning I was trying to grab files off a server at a blistering speed of 20mbps...
Looking into contacting the account manager now, to find out what the fees for cancellation before the contract is done are.
I should have known better than to go for a 24mo contract!
Can you please either post here or DM me the terms of the agreement.
Remember you are not cancelling the agreement - they are in breach! There is a very big difference, in how you phrase this and your correspondence with them.
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I'm signed up as an individual, not a business if that helps.
These are the terms I agreed to on sign up, from their website
and here is the page for the service I'm on
I went with Spitfire in the first place as I'd used their FTTC back in 2018, and found their support and speeds flawless. However, things appear to have really changed for the worse...
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Remember you are not cancelling the agreement - they are in breach! There is a very big difference, in how you phrase this and your correspondence with them.
This ^. You are not going cap in hand to be released. You are telling them they are in breach and to fix it 'else you are going without penalty.
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I'm signed up as an individual, not a business if that helps. Deadlock and ADR, hopefully that request is enough for them to see sense. Sub-20Mbps download speeds on a gigabit service cannot be justified by hiding behind "up-to".
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I'm just about to ring my account manager, after looking into consumer rights.
They're absolutely in breach, and I want to cancel. They will not be charging me anything more.
I've had enough of them.
In terms of a new provider, I've had friends recommend Zen and Aquiss, does anyone have preferences between them?
They both have min speed guarantees clearly stated, good reviews, and are cheaper than the £60/mo I pay to Spitfire!
I would go A&A as I've been using their L2TP service for running home servers for yonks now, but £75/mo for gigabit is a bit steep!
Will get back with how that call goes...
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Aquiss will be perfect for you
Also, even if they let you go this is a negative experience, make sure you review accordingly
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.spitfire.co.uk
Edited by jpm (Tue 04-Feb-25 14:19:53)
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I’ve had a quick scan of the terms you linked to. Wooly as a jumper.
Clause 12.6 is the key. A pretty cowardly and pathetic attempt at extricating themselves.
As a consumer your legal rights however are bound by Consumer Right Act and what is considered “reasonable care and skill”.
It’s a pretty low bar to argue that provision of service at 20 Mbps when you’re paying for 900 Mbps fails the reasonable care and skill test.
Confirm your intention to terminate the agreement within 30 days, due to their material breach of not providing the service with reasonable care and skill.
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I've just got off the phone with my account manager.
Initially he said 'oh I am very sorry but we'd have to charge you the termination fee as this is down to congestion on your local fibre network, outside of our control'
But, as soon as I mentioned that my neighbours weren't affected, that I knew how GPON works and that it's clearly not the issue, and that I know my consumer rights and the SIN506 minimums, his tone of voice completely changed.
He's now gone off to talk to his superiors, but I should get a call back soon regarding termination.
Whatever happens, I am not paying the extortionate £660 cancellation fee!
Fingers crossed!
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Hold firm 👍
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Even if it was an Openreach fault that still doesn't make it not Spitfire's problem.
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In terms of a new provider, I've had friends recommend Zen and Aquiss, does anyone have preferences between them
No experience of Zen, but Aquiss is a solid performer
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They’re grasping big time. Another cowboy ‘business’ ISP unfortunately.
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When I brought up the SIN506 minimum speeds of 110mbps for this service, I was transferred to another *much* less helpful person, who simply said
"This is an up-to service, therefore we have no minimum speed guarantees. Furthermore, we have run tests from our end and determined that there is no problem, so you WILL be charged if you decide to escalate this to our supplier."
I've just got off the phone with my account manager.
Initially he said 'oh I am very sorry but we'd have to charge you the termination fee as this is down to congestion on your local fibre network, outside of our control'
It sounds like they think they are still an ADSL supplier and I know I keep banging on about this, but it looks like they are doing ADSL style throttling.
Edited by DFScale (Tue 04-Feb-25 15:19:45)
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I quite believe the ADSL style throttling is a major part of the issue!
also on an unrelated note, there's another thing that was bugging me about Spitfire which further lends credibility to the fact they're unprofessional.
Every IPv6 address in my assigned /48 from them has my full name in the reverse DNS record!
I've asked to change this, and they have informed me they cannot.
GDPR be damned it seems.
Unfortunately I never got around to moaning about that, ended up just routing v6 via A&A because it was less bother...
Still waiting for that call back too...
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They've now said the following by email.
"You referred to terms and conditions that mean you are eligible to waive ETCs, if you can provide what you are referring to here, then I can discuss internally. As I am sure you can appreciate, I do not have the authority to waive charges, so if you are contesting this potential charge, it would be prudent for me to portray your query accurately."
I'm responding to this quoting the consumer rights act, and saying why I believe that reasonable care and skill has not been taken to resolve the issue...
Hopefully they see some sense, agh
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Cripes they’re being obtuse. You really need to spell it out for them….
Spitfire, you’re not delivering what I’m paying you for. As you’re not delivering (anywhere near) what I’m paying you for, and you have not done for the past x weeks, despite my prior notification of this issue, under simple contract law (let alone the Consumer Rights Act) you have breached the terms of the agreement.
Spitfire, you are in a continuing contractual breach of our agreement. You have been in contractual breach of our agreement since x date.
I am therefore giving you notice to rectify this immediately (deliver what I’m paying you for), to my satisfaction, or notice is given that the contract is terminated without any penalty or further payment from x date.
Yours sincerely
Hugely disappointed and disgruntled
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Yeah right. I'm not a lawyer, but I read it three times time over and thought what a load of utter drivel.
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Yeah right. I'm not a lawyer, but I read it three times time over and thought what a load of utter drivel.
The thing is this is a business ISP, and I'm guessing the OP has signed up as such, consumer rights act doesn't apply, nor do OffCom consumer terms, it will be a contract dispute.
I found out when my TTB phone line went down, it was virtually a case of "Hard luck, we'll get it sorted some time or other, you'll not get any compo".
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Compo? as in automatic compensation scheme for broadband outages? Yeah definitely not in this case.
Business contracts generally fall back to a service credits scheme for outages (based on calculated service availability) and performance - aka Service Levels, SLAs. There’s usually targets around service restoration too, response times and time to repair.
This contract with Spirfire offers none of those business-focused contractual aspects, that could see.
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I agree, I think the best outcome for the OP would be to get out of the contract and sign up with a better service provider.
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I had an email this morning from Spitfire, saying that my email requesting to cancel the contract without penalty under the CRA had been forwarded to my account manager's superior.
Nothing further, just that it had been sent up the chain.
I also had a call around 15 minutes ago with their head of support, who once again said a whole lot of nothing.
The usual 'yes the issue exists when connected directly to the ONT', as well as 'we have run tests inside Openreach's network to your ONT and found no issues'.
I suggested that maybe the issue lies in the handover between OR and Spitfire, but this was flatly denied. 'It can't be, other customers would complain'
Told him that I was trying to leave, as clearly an Openreach engineer would not be able to fix this, and he advised to speak to my account manager or pay up to £200 for an engineer's pointless visit.
Still waiting to hear back from them, as I'm now certain that they cannot fix the issue and want to leave.
Fingers crossed they let me, agh!
I don't expect any compensation, all I want is 'this is when your last bill will be, this is when services will cease, goodbye'
Edited by nyctomanica (Wed 05-Feb-25 13:34:47)
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For what it's worth the £200 (that's been marked up) charge from Openreach is for a visit where there is no fault with Openreach's part of the service, it's not really for ISPs to turn around and call it a fee if they can't fix the problem.
Lots of ISPs like to talk to customers in terms of "well if Openreach come out and can't find any fault then we'll charge you" but if you ever took a case to small claims where an ISP tried to charge you for a pointless Openreach visit that couldn't identify that you were the cause of the problem there's no way it would be ruled in the ISPs favour.
If Spitfire are claiming the only thing they can possibly do is to send an Openreach engineer then get them to clarify that the charge is for locating a fault within your area of responsibility, if they can't agree to this then ask what the next step is. If the tests between ONT and OLT are coming back fine then it can't also be true that there's PON congestion. They've already admitted to the same issue being present with their router in place so I am not sure what else they expect the subscriber to do about it other than keep paying a top tier price for service worse than TalkTalk would manage.
Don't do too much/any legwork for them though - keep the complaint very simple. Delivering 20Mbps on a 1Gbps service is a failure to keep to their contract, how they choose to resolve this is up to them and you've generously allowed them to let you out of the remainder of the contract term.
Edited by jpm (Wed 05-Feb-25 14:14:47)
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If you leave Spitfire, I would suggest you do take a serious look at BTs Business package - ranging from the basic fibre only through various tiers with fixed IP, NBDsupport, additional IT support, 4g/5g backup, 24/365 contact centre, additional mesh devices &c, VoIP (if needed) but you can also choose your own supplier.
Not the cheapest out there but having used them for many years, no major complaints ... Currently running 500/70 service with several neighbours being home workers and a speedtest - any time day or night returns 513-517 & 71-72 time after time after time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
M H C
taurus excreta cerebrum vincit
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My speeds with TTB are consistently higher than the package speed, am going back to residential next month and 'expected speeds' are quoted as higher than package speed, seems to generally be the way with FTTP, but I wouldn't recommend TT due to poor customer service, OK if you know what you want and how to get it, took me 1 1/2 hrs to get the right price and T&C's.
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