Vodafone Unlimited 76 Big Issues

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So its been a while since my last update and the reason for this is due to the amount of issues I have discovered with the Vodafone router. Essentially the router is slowing down drastically when under a high load from multiple computers and with the other services running.

With DDNS enabled, MAC address binding, Wifi 2.4Ghz, Wifi 5Ghz and 2 computers wired gaming online the router simply cannot cope. Gaming latency is not consistent as the router’s CPU spikes from 15%, 45%, 90%. It is not stable under a high load and gets even worse when trying to upload a video file. I tried using just 1 computer wired directly to the LAN port with an upload to Youtube, this resulted in all other forms of internet activity being prevented from working.

That is the moment the upload beings it is no longer possible to browse any other website or do anything else online other that watch the upload slowly working. It is as if the router’s upstream usage completely blocks all other forms of WAN activity with the actual upload also taking much longer than it should, which is completely unacceptable for any connection.

The router’s VPN L2TP server mode also seems to be broken as it doesn’t work regardless of settings tried and the inbuilt event logging for firewall activity does not show anything, the firewall log doesn’t work.

What happened when I raised all these issues to Vodafone support?

I kept it as simple as possible and stated the following,

  • Wifi 2.4Ghz performance weak
  • Wifi 5Ghz performance weak and not able to achieve good AC speeds.
  • Router slowing down when under a high workload, CPU usage spiking to 99%.
  • Online gaming with more than 1 computer not performing
  • VPN L2TP does not work
  • Uploading a file to Youtube causes all other forms of internet activity to stop working.

So I used the online chat system to explain the above and this went quite well, the operator understood that my issues were not simple and decided to get a Tech 2 support operator to call me.

Got 2 calls which I missed, so called back when I was available and managed to get through, explained the above. Now this is where things seemed to get muddled up and despite my efforts to explain the above the Tech 2 operator was more focused on my WAN side sync speeds and connection uptime. I tried to explain that the WAN side is not the problem but this didn’t quite get through to him.

I am asked about my setup so I explain that I am now using an 8 port Gigabit switch connected directly to the Vodafone router with Wifi disabled due to its terrible performance. The Tech 2 operator decides to suggest that the reason for my performance issues are tied to the 8 port switch, his generally assumption is that because I am sending all the network traffic down 1 cable to the Vodafone router it is the reason why everything is going slow (his opinion is completely incorrect). I explained to him that I did try just 1 computer wired directly to the Vodafone router with the same result and to make another point, why is it that for my previous 3 years with another ISP I never once had this issue including with the use of a my current setup?

To this statement I receive no further comment and he decides to downgrade the routers firmware.

The firmware downgrade takes a few minutes, in this time I checked the upload performance and quickly connect my phone to check the wifi, both issues remained, he called back to confirm the firmware downgrade. At this point he proceeded to ask me if my wifi was working, I said yes. Next he said I’ll have to wait 24 hours so he can monitor the line as everything appears to be working, at which point I interrupted and said no the upload problem still remains. Here things end up going in circles again, there was a complete lack of understanding to what I was actually trying to report so I went over it again with more emphasis on the root of the problem being with the Vodafone router, it is the item that is causing the issues and slowing down under use. finally this gets some attention and the Tech 2 operator decides to ask his “router expert”.

What did the router expert have to say?

This was quite interesting to hear: the Tech 2 operator gets back and advises that he has been told the above issue with the upload causing no internet access for anything else is due to “upstream saturation” and that the solution for this is to use some form of QoS. However our routers do not currently support QoS and we can therefore provide no further assistance on this matter. As an alternative you could try to plug another router which does support QoS and run everything off that one.

After listening to that I told the Tech 2 operator that this sounded like a poor excuse, QoS is not the issue and as mentioned earlier why is it that my previous ISP with my current hardware / setup functioned perfectly fine? The only difference is the Vodafone router and for that reason the QoS suggestion is completely false.

And that was essentially the end of it, the Tech 2 operator advised that he cannot help any further and sending out another router is not an option as they do not currently support QoS or allow the use of a 3rd party router (due to the PPPoE lock down). He advised that I proceed with a formal complaint.

My thoughts on the entire conversion

Disappointing and as to why the Tech 2 operator was focused on the WAN sync speed / connection uptime is beyond me, what about everything else I mentioned? Not a word on it and to state he can no longer provide any assistance after reporting all the above makes me feel like I wasted my time trying to resolve an issue. I strongly believe my entire fault description has been overlooked out of ignorance / lack of knowledge. He even at one point mentioned that he deals with many cases and has never come across this problem, to this I didn’t reply back but it tells me his mind was closed.

Someone not willing to look beyond their usual fault routine will never be good at fault finding, take a step back and look at where I am coming from and what I have said, would you expect your average customer to understand what QoS means? Would they know what PPPoE means? or be able to differentiate WAN side performance from LAN side?

Throughout that entire conversion there was not even a pause from the Tech 2 operator to even ask if I knew what he was on about, was this purposely assumed or he just wasn’t thinking out the box? I’ll take the closed mindset as he had to resort to a “router expert”. With the complaint sent I will wait for further news and report on this this entire ordeal.