Vodafone Giga"Fast" FTTP - Not Even 24 Hours in - Nightmare

Bit of a palaver this, so bear with me, a bit of a novel to follow.

Had Vodafone GigaFast FTTP (CityFibre) installed yesterday 21st July. Problems from the get go:

Kelly engineers were due between 1:00pm and 5:00pm. 5:00pm rolls around, no sign of them and no phone call explaining that they are running later than planned. They finally turn up at 5:30pm with a brief apology.

New drop wire installed from pole, attached and clipped neatly to the outside wall, Kelly engineer then tests the cable AFTER doing all that, and his tester reported an issue. Connecting to the ONT confirms no service. Cue the engineers ripping out the first drop wire and having to install another one from the pole again. This one works, and ONT has service, router connected, all lights green everywhere. Happy days, or so we thought...

Engineer does a speed test, and gets around 20mbps (I signed up for the 100/100 package, purely so I could test Vodafone/CityFibre out on the cheapest tier first, and if happy, regrade in future to a higher tier). He does several more speed tests, all around the 20-30mbps range in both directions, never going above that, sometimes a lot below, sometimes the speed test not even completing. He declares I'll have to get in touch with Vodafone as he's not sure what the issue is, gets me to sign off on the physical cabling work they have done (which was fine, very neat and tidy, any mess cleared up by them), and they leave. Due to the lateness of the hour by this time (almost 7:30pm and having had to delay evening meal due to this) I didn't get the chance to speak to Vodafone that night. I also thought (hoped) that leaving everything connected overnight may illicit better things today...

Not so. Still poor speed tests, (also the speed tests seemed to be "stuttering" - stopping and starting rather than the usual smoothness seen on any connection I've had before). Download of large test files start out with "reasonably" good throughput, but eventually dwindle to almost dial-up modem throughput speeds. Furthermore the PPP session on the router seemed to be dropping completely every 15 minutes or so, sometimes more frequently. During these dropouts all the ONT lights remain solid green, so I believe its just the PPP / network side thats dropping and nothing fibre related.

As I have another live connection here (Zen FTTC) with a Fritzbox router, to eliminate the Vodafone THG3000 router being the culprit, I obtained my Vodafone broadband connection username and password from CS online chat this afternoon (very easy), and set up the Fritzbox to connect to the ONT. Connection successful, but with still the same issues (poor throughput, PPP dropping, ONT lights remaining green during drops).

I have contacted Vodafone (actually getting through a to a human in the UK - wonders will never cease!) who have said they need to monitor the connection for 24 hours from their end before seeing what action to take. So thats where things stand now. Not a great start at all, hopefully they will redeem themselves and figure out and sort the issue, if not it'll be cancellation within the 14 day period!

I've also set up a Monitor on the connection myself this afternoon, and as you can see, it's reporting massive amounts of packet loss (ping on WAN is enabled on the router) even whilst the connection is idle:
Vodafone Gigafast Monitor

Compare that to my monitor for a typical day on my Zen FTTC connection:
Zen FTTC Monitor

So, we'll see where this goes. Am I right in my assumption that as the PPP is constantly dropping, combined with poor throughput and high packet loss, but no physical loss of service to the ONT, is a Vodafone network issue, rather than a physical fibre issue?

Thanks for reading if you got this far!

Edited by flilot (Thu 23-Jul-20 00:48:00)

They need the check the number of errors flagged by the ONT i.e. it may just be seeing enough light but with lots of intermittent errors.

Light loss checks are a start, i.e. what level of light is reaching ONT, might be borderline.

It could also be the Vodafone network or the local links from you to their core, to know that best to compare with another Gigafast user in the area.

Have you tried swapping the cable between the ONT and your router? Vodafone's network is terrible and there are complaints about the performance of the Gigafast service all over their forums, but I've never heard about the bit between the customer and where the PPP sessions are terminated having any issues. This almost looks like what happens when someone has set one end of a link to a particular speed and auto-negotiate isn't picking the correct settings up, which could be the signs of a damaged patch cable.

Is there a link light on the WAN port of your router or the LAN port of the ONT? Does this stay lit when you are having problems? What happens if you connect your PC direct to the ONT and set up a PPPoE connection?

In reply to a post by jpm:

Have you tried swapping the cable between the ONT and your router?

Yes, a different cable was tried, also a different router, which was tried with the supplied cable and a different cable.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Is there a link light on the WAN port of your router or the LAN port of the ONT? Does this stay lit when you are having problems?

Yes:

In reply to a post by flilot:

During these dropouts all the ONT lights remain solid green

In reply to a post by jpm:

What happens if you connect your PC direct to the ONT and set up a PPPoE connection?

Desktop PC is upstairs, ONT is downstairs, so cannot try with that as no ethernet through the house (and not dragging it all downstairs!).
I do have an old laptop I could probably get up and running to try a direct PPPoE connection.

In reply to a post by flilot:

Desktop PC is upstairs, ONT is downstairs, so cannot try with that as no ethernet through the house (and not dragging it all downstairs!).
I do have an old laptop I could probably get up and running to try a direct PPPoE connection.

And that will be your problem - You will not get the top speed over wifi. You MUST do speed tests using a computer connected by ethernet cable to your router otherwise they don't mean anything.

Little point in going for a 'gigafast' connection if you are going to throttle it like this

Similar story with those infernal powerline adapters that plug in the mains, They will not give a true test.

Edited by TMCR (Thu 23-Jul-20 11:51:42)

In reply to a post by TMCR:

And that will be your problem...

No. Wifi is connecting at over 800mbps ac (same as it does with my Fritzbox on my Zen connection.)
Speed tests on my Zen connection over wireless are completely fine, constantly reading over 60mbps (synced at 66mbps) with no issues.

My wifi setup should handle a 100mbps FTTP connection with complete ease.
I refer you to my monitor for the gigafast connection again, tell me, would YOU expect this connection to be performing perfectly seeing this?:
Vodafone Gigafast Monitor

My Zen monitor for reference (ignore the red at 2pm yesterday, that was me swapping the router over to the Vodafone connection to test):
Zen Monitor

I'll also refer you to my previous statement that the connection is dropping every 15 minutes on average, sometimes more frequently.

In any case, tests have now been done over ethernet with the same issues: extremely poor and sporadic throughput.

In reply to a post by TMCR:

You MUST do speed tests using a computer connected by ethernet cable to your router otherwise they don't mean anything.

That doesn't explain the disconnects from the PPP connection OR the fact the Kelly's engineer having issues on his testing/commissioning equipment... Points to a setup/hardware issue along the way to me.

In reply to a post by TMCR:

And that will be your problem - You will not get the top speed over wifi. You MUST do speed tests using a computer connected by ethernet cable to your router otherwise they don't mean anything.

While that was true when Internet speeds were slower. Now it is not so true.

Current speed of my Virgin connection is in excess of my old TP-LINK TL-SF1016D 16-Port 10/100 Mbps Desktop Switch.
Which gives a slower connection speed than the WiFi connection on my laptop

Now upgraded to TP-Link LS108G 8-Port Desktop/Wallmount Gigabit Ethernet Switch/Hub to get better speeds.

Just a small update on this. Got a call back as promised from Vodafone yesterday, the issue is now logged as an official fault with a reference number, and I should hear back from the network techs within 72 hours.

Can't really fault CS so far (at least the lady I talked to, Gemma). Just hope the network side can see what the issue is and resolve it.

Can a customer typically get any information from an ONT much like they could from and HG612 VDSL modem?