Vodafone Unlimited Fibre 76 Modem

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I recently switched internet providers from BT to Vodafone with the reason being pricing. For 3 years I was a BT customer and whilst it was generally OK there were some issues starting from the moment they came to install / activate the service.

A little history

Back then when the Open Reach engineers visited they wanted to use the original phone line to the property which has been inactive since I moved in and never had a dial tone when a phone was wired to the wires, (Yes it was so old that there was no master socket in the property). I knew this so explained that I would like them to install a new line which was covered as part of the BT contract. This turned out to be a long discussion which lead to the engineer passing me on to his manager explaining that this was not possible as a line was already present, was it?. I continued to explain there is no master phone socket and the original phone line, from the telegraph pole to the property had been there for over 20 years, there is no dial tone, it is in the wrong place and the wire is so brittle it cannot be used.

Everyone arguing at this point, it’s a recent line they said, in fact better than the new lines “which no longer use copper cores”, really? While this is going on 1 of the 2 engineers decides to check the old line and guess what, it’s completely dead. Some silence and eventually they agree to install a new line from the telegraph pole to my property. So one engineer brings the reel of cable which has the ends already exposed. a great opportunity to take a look at it’s construction. More silence as the plain obvious is staring at us in the bright sunlight, is that copper I see? I didn’t say anything but he knew I had seen the copper. To the end of the story, yes my VDSL line worked great with a 76Mbps Download / 19mbps upload speed for the 1st year.

2nd year BT problems started

Had a massive outage at one point with no explanation but piecing together various news suggest that BT tried to roll out or have updated their cabinets to support G.INP. A technology used to help with noise issues on the VDSL line promising speed gains. (info here) I was using the OpenReach modem into their supplied BT Home Hub 4, eventually the line was fixed and I also changed to a TP-Link W9980 VDSL modem router for better performance.

Tried an ASUS DSL-N66U, ASUS DSL-AC68U both were very good products, firmware, wireless performance and internet performance but the modem was never stable, always disconnected (likely related to the cabinet issue).

3rd year BT problems with the line speed

Since the above my download speed was 64mbps with an upload of 14mbps. Complained over the phone, engineer visit arrange, he checks socket then goes outside to check the cabinet, comes back later saying their is nothing wrong but after this visit my speed goes to 67mbps / 19mbps. I also switched to a Netgear D7000 VDSL modem router as the TP-link had an issue with a particular game.

4th year Vodafone

This is where I am today, due to BT’s pricing I have decided to leave and try Vodafone.

  • Upon activation my line speed was 72mbps / 20mbps (fastpath mode) for +16hours
  • Currently 67mbps / 20mbps (interleaved mode)
    The modem stats were showing a lot of CRC errors on the upstream

How is the Vodafone Connect VDSL modem router?

  • The user interface, GUI is easy to use
  • Comes with a VPN client / server mode option, PPTP, L2PT but limited options (will test later).

What doesn’t seem to work well for me is the wireless side, speeds are good for general use but using the AC 5Ghz mode it doesn’t come close to the Netgear D7000. Using an ASUS PCE-AC68 card (details here)

The wireless options are minimal, virtually nothing to configure which is probably not helping along with the encased antennas, external will always provide better results. This is a problem for me and it gets tricky to solve as the biggest downside with Vodafone is that you are not supplied a PPPoE username or password along with settings to configure your own VDSL modem router. The Vodafone forum has a few topics on this subject, essentially you are stuck with their own router.

Conclusion

I’ll continue to monitor the internet performance and report back with the results.