Can Wi-Fi Devices slow down my FTTC broadband?

I'm getting some extremely low download speeds on my Vodafone 80/20 FTTC.
So I complained and they requested I sent their Level 2 Tech Team some speed tests from my Windows 7 Desktop machine connected by Ethernet cable, with all other Ethernet cables removed and W-Fi disabled on the router.
When I telephoned days later to talk to the Tech Team about my speed tests I had sent, they would not talk to me but told the customer services person to tell me the following:
"This is not a fault sir. The Tech Team say, according to the data they have downloaded from your router, there are 41 wi-fi devices in you area which are causing interference to your broadband. So they have closed the ticket and will have nothing more to do with it!"

Is this likely or even possible?

My speed tests :

Link to - One of my ThinkBroadband Tests

My Speed Tests #2 :

[IMG]https://www.speedtest.net/result/8075989038.png[/IMG]"]Link to - My Speedtest by Ookla

Testing when you have problems via an Ethernet cable is standard best practice and ensuring you do not have anything connected via Wi-Fi at that point is also a good idea e.g. an phone might be uploading to the cloud a large video and causing the problems.

So if the speed tests you posted are over Ethernet and with Wi-Fi turned off they show the problem that many with Vodafone currently have and is reflected in the analysis at https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8322-streaming-p...

i.e. Vodafone has some core network problems that is impacting peak time performance.

Classic syndrome for a provider that is trying to grow rapidly and also under estimating the speed at which they need to grow bandwidth capacity.

If you have the Wi-Fi on the Vodafone router turned off then it should make no difference between 1 and 200 other Wi-Fi routers in the area since it will be ignoring that.

Just one seemingly silly question, as I agree with MrSaffron.

When you say you have WiFi disabled in the router, you presumably mean via an actual setting in the menus? A couple of times I have found people who think it is disabled because they haven�t pressed the WPS button.

I�m not really doubting you, but in many years of supporting customers I found it wise to be certain .

Assuming it is off, then you were told a load of rubbish. The router would not know anything about any wireless devices.

Thank you for your reply MrSaffron.

Just out interest my speed tests do not change at peak time or anytime. They are the same 24/7,morning, noon or night and in the middle of the night.

I did ask them, "If I have my Wi-Fi disabled on my router, how can other peoples Wi-Fi devices effect my broadband speed?" The reply to that was "The Wi-Fi signal from other peoples Smart Phones, iPads, Wi-Fi outputs from routers etc from a total of 41 devices are interfering with the broadband signal over your copper telephone wires that go from your house to the FTTC Cabinet.

Thank you for your reply RobertoS

Yes the Wi-Fi was definitely disabled I douldle checked my smart phone had lost the Wi-Fi connection too.

I did ask them, "If I have my Wi-Fi disabled on my router, how can other peoples Wi-Fi devices effect my broadband speed?" The reply to that was "The Wi-Fi signal from other peoples Smart Phones, iPads, Wi-Fi outputs from routers etc from a total of 41 devices are interfering with the broadband signal over your copper telephone wires that go from your house to the FTTC Cabinet.

Total nonsense from Vodafone CS, I wonder how they came up with 41 devices interfering with the signal in your telephone line. The real reason is a congested network with poor single thread speeds. Time to complain that they need to come up with a better answer and fix their rubbish network or let you leave without penalty as others have managed to achieve. (see the Vodafone forum on TBB)

Thank you for your reply RealaleMadrid. I like your handle by the way

Yes indeed. Their Level 2 Tech Team got that data for the 41 devices from my router they said.

Hi

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Classic syndrome for a provider that is trying to grow rapidly and also under estimating the speed at which they need to grow bandwidth capacity.

I'd also add another classic syndrome of a provider growing too rapidly is poorly trained support staff and some of the utter rubbish they spew out to their suffering customers.

Never heard such nonsense of Wi-Fi signals affecting the copper pairs, even if it could then how would the interference know to only interfere with single threaded downloads and then not to interfere with multi-threaded downloads in order for the multi-threaded test to be up to near sync speed! If this rubbish is coming from level 2 support then there is no hope for Vodafone if that's the level of their competence.

Regards

Phil

Edited by deleted (Thu 28-Feb-19 10:46:59)

In reply to a post by PhilipD:

there is no hope for Vodafone if that's the level of their competence.

No different to the fines they've been given before for poor customer service.

This news article is relevant:
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8335-vodafone-cl...

If standard Wi-Fi operating within the standards set out by the various Wi-Fi governing bodies could affect copper pairs that easily then many, many people would be having issues with their broadband.

Remember when Demon, My ISP owned by Voadfone but soon to be closed, had gateway issues in December 2016 causing sub 56k performance. Took nearly a month for them to fix it and CS was still making people jump through hoops and then telling them there was no problem even after it was posted on the Demon status there was.

Part of the final status update included the following:

"A small number of customers may be experiencing slow broadband speeds. A number of changes, both technical and hierarchical, have been made, and the issue should be resolved shortly"

Which translates to:

Customers have been having problems and have somehow manged to bother the CEO. Someone has been kicked (hard) and told to fix it quickly. An intern may have been blamed and fired.

Anthony

Edited by arendall667 (Fri 01-Mar-19 18:26:24)

Yup, sounds like a complete fob off from your ISP.

Wifi signal will not interfere (cross talk) to a degree that will interfere with your copper line signal.
Wifi frequency is no where near Ethernet.. 20-30MHz vs 2.4GHz.. its almost as if they tried to make it work when designing it.... those pesky IEEEs and their RFCs...
2.4GHz and 5GHz Wifi will not generate enough power to charge a copper cable sufficiently to interfere with its signal.

You're faced with the anonymity of using a large ISP - where they won't really resolve your problem if its in their own infrastructure.

I would demand from your ISP to send out an engineer with a tester (JDSU quite common) and run a line test for signal. I would assume Vodafone use Openreach for the last mile copper, so expect an Openreach engineer to show up. Their tester should reveal if your signal is poor due to infrastructure.

You can perhaps threaten to cancel your subscript and if possible refuse payment - that might get their attention. If it doesn't yield results, then move to another ISP and hopefully their equipment isnt as [censored].

Bear in mind, if there isn't a fault found in the infrastructure then possible charges will be forwarded to you.. I think they range from £150 - £200 - you can ask for estimate before you commit.

Have you plugged your modem into the master socket and not using an extension cable? This is where the ISP is responsible up to.

Have you checked for any electronic device situated close to any copper/UTP cable in your building that may generate cross talk/interference? I've seen florescent light displays generate interference, but your copper cable in your building would need to be pretty close.

Do you have access to your line stats? Line attenuation? SNR? Sync rate? (when you have slow speeds)


From my professional career, my opinion is that Vodafone have the worst support department I've ever dealt with..

Seeing as the symptom as shown by the thinkbroadband speed test is the commonly occurring Vodafone single stream limiting, it is almost certain that an engineer test will show a perfectly connecting line.

Which makes the charge by Openreach to Vodafone equally certain. With a high probability of that being passed on to the OP. (Though I haven�t checked whether V do pass on the charge or not).

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 02-Mar-19 11:15:20)

For those seeing the slow speeds on Vodafone, i.e. slow single download but multiple is fine

DO NOT BOOK ENGINEER VISITS they are a waste of time.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8335-vodafone-cl...

They are slowly figuring out they have an issue in their network.

Hi BlueNapalm, Many thanks for the info.

My speeds have been consistently slow over the last two weeks 24/7. No change at peak times or in the middle of the night even. I first noticed this about two weeks ago, when it seemed to happen suddenly. It was working fine before then for 10 months since I signed up with them.

I have found this on my router:

DSL status information
Line status Show Time
Link type Interleaved path
Bit rate
Downstream Upstream
Actual data rate 76264 (Kbps.) 20000 (Kbps.)
Operating data
Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin 6.4 dB 12.4 dB
Loop Attenuation 15.2 dB 15.3 dBFEC Corrections 8 1469513
CRC Error 0 1419
Statistics
Transmitted Frames Received Frames
Frame Counter 7589934 11438835

The last time I spoke to Vodafone on the phone, they told me I would be better off leaving them and go back to virgin media cable/fibre

Thanks for the info MrSaffron

I suspected they have a network line card issue on their network. I told them that on their community forum on the 23rd Feb.

Link to - me mentioning this on VF Forum

I also mentioned this to Vodafone on the phone on Thursday 28th Feb.

Edited by mrmarktigger (Sat 02-Mar-19 13:03:58)

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

The last time I spoke to Vodafone on the phone, they told me I would be better off leaving them and go back to virgin media cable/fibre

There are certainly many other ISPs using FTTC that don't have Vodafone's problem that they are giving you. Assuming that they will let you out of the contract, with no penalty in view of them saying that, I should be asking in a new thread (in Which ISP?) for recommendations.

Examples.

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

The last time I spoke to Vodafone on the phone, they told me I would be better off leaving them and go back to virgin media cable/fibre

It does of course depend on what you want. Cable is excellent for high throughput speeds, very useful if you download these massive 30 to 40 Gigabyte games on a PC,console etc. Cable is not so good at latency as the medium is shared. This shows up in the Thinkbroadband quality report.

Always contact Vodafone tech support via web chat, and when it's over save a copy of the transcript.

*Our OpenReach cabinet recently had an argument with a digger - Vodafone's initial response to our decreased sync speed to the cabinet was "split the SSIDs"!

I was toying with the idea of switching to Plusnet or Zen FTTC.

However, would BT Openreach have anything to do a Switch?

I have experienced Two major disasters when BT Openreach screwed up before.

Once four years ago when I had Plusnet FTTC installed. It worked perfect for a week. Then BT Openreach disconnected both the broadband and the phone line. So, Plusnet ended my contract & gave me a Full Refund to the last penny. Plusnet said I could re-apply for a new contract and wait almost a month for BT Openreach to re-install the telephone & broadband again.
At that time I had not cancelled my Virgin Media Cable/Fibre yet, so I just carried on with them.

Then 10 months ago I decided to give Vodafone a try. This time on the day of activation I had a working telephone line but no broadband & the Company next door to my Home lost their broadband. After further investigations, BT Openreach had somehow connected the broadband I should have had to the Company next door phone line. When Vodafone did a line test next doors Global 4 modem showed up. BT Openreach did get my broadband working 2 days later. However the Company next door were without broadband for 4 days, before theirs got re-connected by BT Openreach. What a disaster! I have no idea how BT Openreach could of done that but they did hahahaha

I'm not sure I can go through another BT Openreach episode again. Life is to short hahahaha.

In reply to a post by mrmarktigger:

I was toying with the idea of switching to Plusnet or Zen FTTC.
However, would BT Openreach have anything to do a Switch?

Yes, because Openreach (https://www.openreach.co.uk/) (no longer called BT Openreach) own the wires from your house, both cabinets, and the wires to the exchange. Nearly every telephone service provider and internet service provider (apart from Virgin Media, and some smaller local ones) have to use them.

Switching between FTTC providers should only be a software switch, so no actual wires to move.

Edited by jchamier (Sat 02-Mar-19 15:35:28)

Thanks for the info jchamier

Hmm.. A software switch sounds harmless enough. If Openreach don't mess that up

Vodafone sent me a new router which has made zero difference.

I have found the follow stats on the status of it: Please could anyone advise of the health of my Line etc?

DSL Mode VDSL G.993.5 (VDSL)

DSL status information
Line status Show Time Link type Interleaved path

Bit rate
Downstream Upstream
Actual data rate 76264 (Kbps.) 20000 (Kbps.)

Operating data
Downstream Upstream
SNR Margin 6.6 dB 12.5 dB
Loop Attenuation 15.2 dB 15.3 dB


Error counter

Indicator name Downstream Upstream
FEC Corrections 49 5382231
CRC Error 7 5041

Statistics
Transmitted Frames Received Frames
Frame Counter 20044297 29420088

Line speeds look good

Vodafone is not having a good time performance wise, so your slow speeds are in the hands of Vodafone as has been pointed out before, i.e. congestion or some other issue on their core network

Many Thanks MrSaffron. So if I do switch to Plusnet or Zen Internet, do you think I should get some decent download speeds again from what you can see?

In all probability yes

Many Thanks again MrSaffron. I believe I may kinda proved this, in a way.

On Speedtest.net where every UK test server I have tried so far only gives a single thread d/l speed of between 3 & 7 Mbit/s, I have found by searching and selecting a Canterbury test server I get a single thread d/l speed of 68 Mbits/s. But only Canterbury so far.

Also outside of the UK, Gibraltar, I get 15 M/bit/s single thread.