Ultrahub Problems

Vodafone’s Ultra Hub supposedly I have 910 Mbits FTTP. I have the usual latency problems like most people seem to have with Vodafone, my current opinion is Vodafone is selling bandwidth they do not have.
The first problem with the Ultrahub which they appear to have fixed was the unit kept rebooting at random time, Vodafone lied about this for several weeks blaming equipment connected and the fact that the unit was not rebooting, checking on board logs showed the issue was connected to the Broadcom chip.

The current problem is a little strange after installing the unit, a few weeks later the Ultrahub starts to answer every ARP broadcasts and supply its MAC Address, the results when you do a ip scan of your LAN’s subnet most of the IPs are associated with the MAC address of the Ultrahub. Running Wireshark shows you the Ethernet frames of this problem, these were sent to Vodafone.
The havoc this cause is a real pain and for some reason it affects the Sky Q box and mini Sky Q boxes.
If anyone can try and look for this problem on their network, I used a P.C. running Angry IP a small programme you can easily download, it requires JRE (Java Runtime Engine) which could be on your P.C. already but is easily to download.
If you have a iPhone you can download the free version Net Analyser go LAN within it and if every IP is occupied you have the problem.

Vodafone’s answer to this is the usual rubbish interference, customer equipment and so on.
By the way I think it’s obvious why Vodafone disconnected the forum., don’t you !

Don't expect any sense out of Vodafone CS, they're incompetent, and impossible to divert from their pre-scripted answers.

I had a sudden THG3000 router failure last Xmas, nothing would connect to 2.4GHz wifi band unless it was literally touching the router. 5GHz worked fine. Everything could see all the routers in surrounding houses, except ours. Had all the same excuses, interference, customer equipment, etc.. They actually wanted me to give them access to my phone camera and do a walk around the house so they could blame something else.

It took about 4 hours of chat sessions to get to the point where they had no answer, but were still flat refusing to replace the router unless I had first contacted ALL of the manufacturers of the devices I was trying to connect. This stupidity went on and on, until they suddenly relented and asked if I thought replacing the router would fix the problem, as though I hadn't been telling them this for the last 3 hours.

Of course, a new router fixed the problem.

They couldn't even organise that right, I had to package the old router up for DPD to do a doorstep exchange, so I asked if I should address or label it, they said that the courier would come with a pre-printed label. Of course, when the courier came, first thing he said was, "There's no label on it... they always do this!" Anyway, he filled in some paperwork and took it away. When I opened the box of the new router, inside was the returns label, in with all the paperwork.

It was an appalling experience, really. Totally infuriating. As soon as this term expires, I'll be off somewhere else - shame, as the actual broadband is fine.

Edited by sparky_paul (Thu 08-May-25 15:06:21)

Hi, that sounds very familiar they really couldn’t organise a social function in a brewery.

The first line are boarding on useless, if switching off and on doesn’t fix it you are in trouble.

The Ultrahub had the reboot problem for weeks, which they lied about, I’m pretty sure that fault has been fixed.

The unit has now the MAC address problem, if anyone reading this, could run on a Windows PC the program AngryIP to check for the presence of the routers MAC address where it shouldn’t be.

Could you let me know how you get on.

In reply to a post by ultraproblems:

The first line are boarding on useless, if switching off and on doesn’t fix it you are in trouble.

Perhaps the implications of your comment are a little harsh. People responding at the first point of contact are doing the job they are paid and instructed to do. They may know better than the script they have to follow but could well fall foul of company disciplinary processes if they deviate from what they have been instructed to do.

Blame those that set up the system, not those who have to work within it.

Everyone knows the first line staff are running off a script and deviation from it could be very problematic for them, I’m also convinced sometimes there are other people listening in on the conversation.

The fact that the first line staff are effectively useless has no reflection on their ability, it is the end result of the persons’ ability modulated the environment under which they have to work.

If you can get them off script they sometimes reveal interesting facts, one particular one was that the software within the Ultrahub is provided by a third party, not Vodafone staff. Which may or may not be true but it’s what I was told.

Yes managers will very often listen in. It’s been that way with call centres for twenty odd years if not longer. There’s no romance to contact centres they are battery farms for humans.

That ties in with my experience, I’m not sure that Vodafone’s first line is solely for Vodafone, I always suspect that you might get the same person when you phone up about your Air Frier.

Meanwhile back to the plot still looking for someone to run AngryIp to check their lan, the fault I’ve experienced give random transitory failures and slow through put..

An alternative is if you have an iPhone / iPad run the free Net Analyser app.

In reply to a post by ultraproblems:

... I’m not sure that Vodafone’s first line is solely for Vodafone, I always suspect that you might get the same person when you phone up about your Air Frier.

Mrs Scale found that quite funny, but said she wouldn't be surprised.