3 ms·

Time to dump on them again: Vodafone has given me one of the worst Internet access experiences ever, in the middle of Europe. Their service is crap and people o

Time to dump on them again: Vodafone has given me one of the worst Internet access experiences ever, in the middle of Europe. Their service is crap and people on the support line dare tell you, that you are a young person, so no need to get upset, when they give you shitte Internet service. They promise too much in their contracts and then cannot keep you a stable connection. Every now and then I get days, where the package loss is inacceptably high and my whole connection goes into garbage mode. Stay away from them if at all possible.

juunpp 4y ago
Hah, I also once had a technician come home to diagnose connectivity issues and in the process try to convince me that the shitty Internet speed I had was just fine for my needs, and how my needs were supposedly just as his. Do your goddamn job.
- zx8080 4y ago
  Take money and do nothing seems like a better option. No human could resist it. Only when they fear something. It does not work any other way.
pjmlp 4y ago
The problem is how hard they are to avoid even when you try. I swore to never be a customer of them, after they screwed me over with a contract, then they eventually bought the major cable providers in Germany. Now there is no way around Vodafone if you are in a region where cable is a better option than ADSL.
bmacho 4y ago
> Vodafone has given me one of the worst Internet access experiences ever, in the middle of Europe. Literally the same, but probably very different: also in middle of Europe they have recently put me in a prepaid plan with free internet, and I find myself mindlessly scrolling when I have to do other things. It's easy to not to distract myself when I have to pay for it, but for free it's much harder.
webinvest 4y ago
Which cellular providers are better or the best to use in Europe?
solarkraft 4y ago
If the service is worse than what's promised, you have decent legal options. Prove that you're getting less than you pay for and you may be able to cut the price. Counter-point: I get decent Vodafone (ex-Unitymedia) service. Chatting about individual experiences with their service is probably a welcome distraction for them.
- zelphirkalt 4y ago
  In theory yes. However, the tools which are offered by the official institution (Bundesnetzagentur), which should hold watch over ISPs and their service, do not even measure package loss. All they measure is throughput and ping. That alone is not sufficient for proper gaming. Also an average ping does not suffice, if there are short ping spikes, which average out over the measuring period. Basically I know more than the tool checks and the things the tool checks are often not the problem. Furthermore I have to go through a process of measuring so and so many times on a schedule. Add to that, that the ping spikes are sporadic, so that I would have to be lucky, to actually record any. It is quite telling, that the official tool for measuring a connection offers so little statistics, that it is basically useless for people, who just need a _stable_ connection (no package loss, low ping, no ping spikes, OK-ish throughput). The official tool does not allow me to "prove it". Basically, I could live with half my speed, if the connection was super solid. Throughput is not everything, unless you watch 4k videos all day, where there is lots of buffering happening anyway. Instead, they promise everyone (mostly people, who don't know much about IT) "high speed", at the cost of reliability.

juunpp 4y ago

Hah, I also once had a technician come home to diagnose connectivity issues and in the process try to convince me that the shitty Internet speed I had was just fine for my needs, and how my needs were supposedly just as his. Do your goddamn job.

zx8080 4y ago
Take money and do nothing seems like a better option. No human could resist it. Only when they fear something. It does not work any other way.

pjmlp 4y ago

The problem is how hard they are to avoid even when you try. I swore to never be a customer of them, after they screwed me over with a contract, then they eventually bought the major cable providers in Germany. Now there is no way around Vodafone if you are in a region where cable is a better option than ADSL.

bmacho 4y ago

> Vodafone has given me one of the worst Internet access experiences ever, in the middle of Europe. Literally the same, but probably very different: also in middle of Europe they have recently put me in a prepaid plan with free internet, and I find myself mindlessly scrolling when I have to do other things. It's easy to not to distract myself when I have to pay for it, but for free it's much harder.

webinvest 4y ago

Which cellular providers are better or the best to use in Europe?

solarkraft 4y ago

If the service is worse than what's promised, you have decent legal options. Prove that you're getting less than you pay for and you may be able to cut the price. Counter-point: I get decent Vodafone (ex-Unitymedia) service. Chatting about individual experiences with their service is probably a welcome distraction for them.

zelphirkalt 4y ago
In theory yes. However, the tools which are offered by the official institution (Bundesnetzagentur), which should hold watch over ISPs and their service, do not even measure package loss. All they measure is throughput and ping. That alone is not sufficient for proper gaming. Also an average ping does not suffice, if there are short ping spikes, which average out over the measuring period. Basically I know more than the tool checks and the things the tool checks are often not the problem. Furthermore I have to go through a process of measuring so and so many times on a schedule. Add to that, that the ping spikes are sporadic, so that I would have to be lucky, to actually record any. It is quite telling, that the official tool for measuring a connection offers so little statistics, that it is basically useless for people, who just need a _stable_ connection (no package loss, low ping, no ping spikes, OK-ish throughput). The official tool does not allow me to "prove it". Basically, I could live with half my speed, if the connection was super solid. Throughput is not everything, unless you watch 4k videos all day, where there is lots of buffering happening anyway. Instead, they promise everyone (mostly people, who don't know much about IT) "high speed", at the cost of reliability.