Vodafone Gigafast - which package? Any mobile tie-ins?

Soldato
Joined
1 Apr 2014
Posts
19,180
Location
Aberdeen
Vodafone have made the fibre-optic cable outside my door live. I'm getting too many pauses on BT Infinity. So, should I go for 500 Mbps or 900 Mbps?

And are there any tie-in packages worth considering? My mobile is currently with EE on a SIM-only contract.
 
Yes, I'd prefer Zen over Vodafone. They're not offering fibre right now here. If memoiry serves, Vodafone will have exclusive rights for a year or two.
 
Is that a Vodafone-exclusive CityFibre area? Reports are that the access network is great but Vodafone's core is awful and they run it too hot still. If Zen can serve you then I'd try and get that.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news...ch-services-over-cityfibre-network-in-january

I guess if they're running it too hot, the question is: how hot? If a user on the 500meg service is getting 'only' 200mbit but reliably.. that's possibly still better than a flickering 52mbit FTTC connection.
Of course, keep an eye out and migrate when possible - if the network in your street has ample capacity but that's being squandered by the Vodafone core network then yes, off to Zen you pop as soon as it's possible!

Regarding the speed choice: 500 should be more than ample for most households. I suspect that the fastest 'right now' speed requirement is for game streaming services (Stadia, geforce now) which can use up to 50mbit. So if you're running a few of those then you might well benefit from the speed. Other than that, the extra from 500-->900 would only serve to help you download files quicker. This is certainly useful when installing new games etc. Frustratingly though, if you're installing a big patch for a very popular game, there can be (again) contention elsewhere: I'm on a 150mbit service from Hyperoptic and some of the larger Warzone patches were crawling along at a glacial pace while everything else was zippy. Friends on Sky, BT, and Virgin all experienced the same, so it was clear that the servers hosting the updates were getting a kicking rather than it being a limitation of any of our ISPs.
 
I get problems notably in the evenings with vodafone. Much cheaper than Zen was but as is often the case, cheaper but not so good. Might try alternative DNS servers as I think it might be related to using vodafone DNS servers. Can be slow but the main problem is "unable to find IP address for" errors. Few seconds later the page then loads.
 
I ordered the 900/900 package from gigafast - £48 a month and they allow multiple fixed ip's its a massive win! My engineer date is the 22nd of next month for the install! :D
 
Webchat with Vodafone today and they have me my ppoe username and password. Dont think i will need a different router the vox3 they supply does the job but good to have the pppoe details to hand. I guess anything that can route at gigabit speeds is gonna be expensive
 
TalkTalk are offering their services in Aberdeen over CityFibre.

https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/broadband/futurefibre

I'd pick them over Vodafone, though they don't offer the 900Mbps option.

8B1VNPk.png

900 by my understanding is only being tested in a few places nationwide, vodafone are rolling it out in two towns across the country. It's also a fair bit cheaper than above and also symmetric which to my understanding EE's offerings aren't. I could be wrong.
 
im on the 500 and loving it. the upload speed is fantastic. can actually use cloud storage now.

It's brilliant - Called Voda yesterday and they have set me a few fixed v4 IP's so im golden now. Just need to set up my firewall properly and do off with the Voda hub thing and we are good to go :D
 
It's brilliant - Called Voda yesterday and they have set me a few fixed v4 IP's so im golden now. Just need to set up my firewall properly and do off with the Voda hub thing and we are good to go :D

its on a whole different level compared to my virgin 350 was. the sh3 had latency issues with heavy torrenting on one pc and teams meeting on laptop the laptop would get stuttering but not now with voda gigafast its just perfect smooth.

i was thinking about asking for static ip but so far iv got:
PPP session uptime 19 days, 22 hours, 14 minutes and 3 seconds

and my ip address has been the same since iv got the service. i only need ip address to stay the same for a few days when im away from home so this is more than good enough for me. prefer dynamic ip for security reasons but so far the ip doesnt seem to be dynamic enough. lol.
 
its on a whole different level compared to my virgin 350 was. the sh3 had latency issues with heavy torrenting on one pc and teams meeting on laptop the laptop would get stuttering but not now with voda gigafast its just perfect smooth.

i was thinking about asking for static ip but so far iv got:
PPP session uptime 19 days, 22 hours, 14 minutes and 3 seconds

and my ip address has been the same since iv got the service. i only need ip address to stay the same for a few days when im away from home so this is more than good enough for me. prefer dynamic ip for security reasons but so far the ip doesnt seem to be dynamic enough. lol.

Mine was only put in yesterday, I need a couple of fixed IP's and am using a Fortigate with UTM for security at the perimeter. Voda were very helpful with the details/setup and another thing they answer the phone pretty much straight away and you have an engineer. I like that.
 
Mine was only put in yesterday, I need a couple of fixed IP's and am using a Fortigate with UTM for security at the perimeter. Voda were very helpful with the details/setup and another thing they answer the phone pretty much straight away and you have an engineer. I like that.

what i like that the the webchat facility has a lot more power than virgins. voda webchat was able to talk to me about billing where virgin wont and tell you to phone up.
i did get my pppoe username and password from them just incase i decide to use a different router. but my experience of the voda vox3 is very good so far so doubt i will be changing it.
 
Back
Top Bottom