Anyone connected yet? Ordered.

I've placed an order today for the up to 38Mbps, its for a family member switching from Plusnet.

They never asked for a Mac code and mentioned there was a £30 fee for switching to Fibre - didn't see that on the website and hope they don't mess up the switch over.

Was given 10 working days as a guideline turnaround, so will update soon.

MAC code is obsolete these days.

The 10 days is to give time for old provider to send you a letter and if you are not wanting to move details of how to cancel the move, i.e. migration systems changed in June.

I'm waiting to find out if I can use my own equipment before I consider moving (and need to check to see if Sky charge me an arm & leg to leave).

Will be interesting to see how it performs (should be lightening fast if their are only just signing up customers)

Edited by mbames (Fri 28-Aug-15 16:57:18)

Did you miss your own thread below where it was confirmed?

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/vodafone/t/4430342-...

and it will be as fast as any other provider because they are reselling and don't have their own network. A silly thing to say?

Edited by ZenUserJP (Sat 29-Aug-15 13:45:02)

If you read after the thread replies after i had it "confirmed" you'll see that every time VF are asked they give a different answer. Hence why nobody knows.

The lack of Mac code definitely made this process much easier.

Router has arrived and activation date set for 11th Sept. (Plusnet also emailed and said service will cease on the 12th).

Will update once up and running.

In reply to a post by narz:

Will update once up and running.

Is it up and running yet? Any joy on using your own kit?

I managed to get someone on the line who could tell me more about the connect router. It currently doesn't even offer a bridging mode. So you're not able to disable DHCP on it and if you use your own router you'll get double NAT.

Still can't get anyone to say what authentication their VDSL uses and whether you can go the openreach method however.

I've just had a phonecall from Vodafone as I had registered an interest in their fibre broadband a few months ago, so I asked the key question, and after checking with his manager, I was informed that it is not possible to use your own router.

In reply to a post by mbames:

In reply to a post by narz:

Will update once up and running.

Is it up and running yet? Any joy on using your own kit?

Sorry for the late update , it was connected on the 10th of Sept and they're getting 34Mbps /8Mbps ish on speed tests. So they are happy.

I'll try having a play with the router and settings to dig out the user name / pass, when I get a chance to go over.

If anyone wants to know something else, I'll give it a shot.

Maybe a Traceroute to the BBC?

You should get nice through put if you on one of there directly connected exchanges even if your exchange gets a lot of others users, as far as I remember they installed duel 10G connections. Most ISP's have a single 1G.

If you are on an exchange without a direct connection it's all on BT wholesale and it will be as hit and miss as it is every other ISP. (the wonders of WBMC)

Had a little play, couldn't find the username or password, unless its a hidden menu or requires a different login. I've attached a screenshot of every page on the router, if you want to know what features are available.

Speed tests:
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/4695770451
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14432...

tracert

C:\Users\ADMIN>tracert www.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.66]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms vodafone.connect [192.168.1.1]
2 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms host-83-146-18-120.dslgb.com [83.146.18.120]
3 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms ge-0-0-0.30.cht-cor-001.dslgb.net [83.146.22.30]
4 8 ms 7 ms 8 ms xe-7-3-2-xcr1.lnd.cw.net [195.10.12.1]
5 12 ms 8 ms 8 ms ae15-xcr1.lns.cw.net [195.2.30.114]
6 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms bbc-linx.pr01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [195.66.236.103]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 9 ms 9 ms 8 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
10 10 ms 9 ms 9 ms 132.185.255.149
11 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms bbc-vip111.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.66]
Trace complete.

Router GUI screenshots

Home Page
Wifi
Sharing
Settings
User Permissions
Additional Settings
Advanced Sharing
Advanced Wifi
Firewall
Port Management

In addition to no 3rd party routers, Vodafone can not provide static IP addresses at the moment.

May change in the future they say, but a no no for now.

Rather a slow upload speed it seems?

Router looks to be rather basic


For comparison here is my traceroute (on Sky)
C:\Users\matth_000>tracert www.bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.26]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.100.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms ip-84-38-37-12.easynet.co.uk [84.38.37.12]
4 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 02780a99.bb.sky.com [2.120.10.153]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
8 13 ms 17 ms 13 ms 132.185.255.149
9 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms bbc-vip145.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.26]

Trace complete.

In reply to a post by mbames:

Router looks to be rather basic

Also looks [censored]. And yet VF say "We’ll give you our plug-and-play Vodafone Connect router (worth £130)"

I think someone put the 0 on for a joke. OK so it has "beamforming" wowzers! - I think?

At the end of the day you get what you pay for and for what £2.50 a month you aren't going to get much!

I put my details in - 80mbps £10 a month and then £20 after 6 months on an 18 month contract. Not bad but the 18 months bit is a immediate turn off.

I'd happily pay to not have to use that router, sadly it seems to Vodafone don't like me as a potential customer.

Not really sure I need a beamforming wifi router, I need one which gives me good coverage over the whole house (which my current one does), along with a whole host of other useful features.

I'd give my opinion, but my activation has been delayed due to a tree well and truly bollixing up the drop cable to my new place, to the point where they're going to need to drop in another pole.

And of course communication with Openreach is as dismal as it ever has been. I can't get any information, Vodafone claim they can't chase Openreach, only wait to be told stuff. Stonkingly frustrating.

I signed up to Vodafone back in Oct 15 and promptly cancelled with them only 3 days later due to an issue with barely useable speeds pretty much 24/7 of 6mbit down and 10mbit up although to be fair it did hit 35mb down and 15 up for at least once/twice a day.

Coming from VM with contention issues of 5mbit down 5mbit up on a 100mbit line I could not take the risk of being with Vodafone for a 12 month agreement so decided the best option was to cancel and look elsewhere.

Now using Pulse8 and get the same speed 24/7 even though it's more it's definitely worth the extra.

In reply to a post by durkasmurk:

I signed up to Vodafone back in Oct 15 and promptly cancelled with them only 3 days later due to an issue with barely useable speeds pretty much 24/7 of 6mbit down and 10mbit up although to be fair it did hit 35mb down and 15 up for at least once/twice a day.

Coming from VM with contention issues of 5mbit down 5mbit up on a 100mbit line I could not take the risk of being with Vodafone for a 12 month agreement so decided the best option was to cancel and look elsewhere.

Now using Pulse8 and get the same speed 24/7 even though it's more it's definitely worth the extra.

The deal I am considering signing upto is an 18month contract. I was wondering if there was a means of cancelling sooner if there service wasn't good enough? Were.you signing up so a similar contract if so how were you able to cancel?

Vodafone offer a 14 day cooling off period as soon as the service is activated so I just cancelled within that time period but it maybe worth while double checking that before signing on the dotted line.

The contract I signed was also 18 months. (Did this over the phone)

Edited by durkasmurk (Wed 13-Jan-16 10:48:54)

I'm on Vodafone, and got in february. It haven't been a smooth ride, but initially it was great.
Despite the routers cheap looks in the menu, i must admit, i haven't seen a better ISP provided router perform better on wireless for years. It works, and it works well!.

However, having got troubles with my phoneline (untied Utilites have dug up further down the road, and seems to have hit our cables) so give some fault with ~30V to ground.

Strange thing is, router still trains up to the exchange with close to max of 18meg. Most of the time, it works wonderful.
But every now and again, hop no. 2 to
host-212-158-250-32.dslgb.com either times out, or comes with ridiculous lag of thousands of ms during trace route.

Now, my questions is, can i see anywhere if it is through BT Wholesale (which i must admit, i have a suspicion it is), and which might be why, this slowdown seems like a heavily congested BT exchange. For sure it can't be the millions of VF customers on my exchange, lol

If needed - the exchange is MRSTE