Your broadband connection depends on the type of broadband available in your area and the internet access product you have chosen.

Vodafone will let you know what connection type is available at your address.

Continue reading below for more information on the different broadband types available.

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) broadband uses an OpenEir provided copper line to bring broadband up to 24 Mbps into your home.

ADSL can be used alongside a home telephone on the same copper connection.

It’s important to note that your distance to the nearest telephone exchange and the quality of your connection will impact speeds. The greater the distance and the poorer the quality of the copper path from the exchange into your home, the slower the speed you are likely to obtain.

You may experience some contention on the link between the exchange and the Internet. This may result in slower speeds. 

Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) delivers fibre broadband to your nearest street cabinet and normally uses copper cables to bring the connection to your home. Vodafone offers speeds of up to 100 Mbp on this connection type.

It’s important to note that your distance to the street cabinet and the quality of the cable path will impact your speeds. The greater the distance and the poorer the quality of the copper path from the street cabinet into your home, the slower the speed you are likely to obtain.

You may experience some contention on the link between the cabinet and the Internet. This may result in slower speeds

Vodafone offer both ADSL and FTTC broadband services called ‘Simply Broadband’. Find out about the speeds and broadband types available at your address by using our broadband and speed availability checker.

Fibre to the Home (FTTH) is the fastest type of fibre connection Vodafone offers. FTTH service brings the fibre cables directly in to your home - delivering speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps.

Vodafone offer a number of FTTH broadband products called '500 Fibre Broadband' and 'Gigabit 1000 Fibre Broadband'. Find out about the speeds and broadband types available at your address by using our broadband and speed availability checker.

Vodafone offer a wireless broadband service using our GigaCube or a similar modem. This uses the same technology as your mobile phone, except instead of making a voice call over the phone, your modem makes a data call on the Vodafone network which connects you to the Internet.

The service is delivered using wireless from a mobile base station. Speeds can be affected by your distance from the base station, the location of the modem and amount of users using the same base station at the same time.

You may experience some contention on the link between the base station and the Internet. This may result in slower speeds

Vodafone offer a wireless broadband service called 'Simply Broadband 4G'. Find out about the speeds and broadband types available at your address by using our broadband and speed availability checker.

Placing your modem in the centre of the building will provide better coverage to more of your home or business. The speed and strength of the Wi-Fi signal depends on the distance between the modem and the devices you're using (e.g. a smartphone, tablet, laptop).

Make sure the modem is in an open space and positioned as high off the ground as possible (at least on a table or piece of furniture). Windows, walls and anything metal can affect the Wi-Fi signal. Avoid placing the modem behind a TV or in a cabinet.

Tip: The front of the modem (the flat side with the lights on it) should face outwards into the room.

In most cases, Wi-Fi shares an Internet connection with the entire network.

If there are multiple people and devices using Wi-Fi at the same time it can slow Wi-Fi speeds.

Older devices may not be able to achieve fast wireless speeds, as they use older Wi-Fi technology. For example, even if your broadband connection is 1 Gbps, but your device only supports Wi-Fi 802.11g, then your peak speed to that device can only ever reach 54 Mbps (1/20th of the potential of your broadband connection).

Keeping devices and software up-to-date will ensure the best Wi-Fi experience.

Most home equipment has more than enough bandwidth to stream video. It is extremely unlikely that you would manage to saturate your local network, if you did you would certainly experience issues.

Even watching 4k or Blu-ray content won't come anywhere near the capacity of a home network modem, although it may exceed the individual bandwidth your device is receiving from your wireless access point.

Most network equipment provides a full speed connection to each device. So, each port on a 100 Mbps router is going to get a full 100 Mbps to the router, not a portion, and internally routers usually have even more bandwidth.

Outdated operating systems might not include the latest performance tuning patches, and the increased likelihood of automatic updates being downloaded at the time of your test, could slow down the connection speed. 

There are multiple browsers currently available e.g. Firefox, Edge, Safari, Chrome etc.  Each has different capabilities and may provide different results, particularly on high-speed connections.  

They will all process speed test requests differently depending on their configuration and some will process these requests quicker than others, which will impact on the end result.

If your computer processor is carrying too heavy a load (in terms of RAM and/or CPU utilisation), the speed test result may not be a true reflection of the performance of your broadband service. This may happen when certain software or applications are not closed down before starting a speed test.

If background software like virtual private network (VPN), anti-virus, content based filtering (e.g. parental control), firewall and/or any local DNS manipulation is active when running a speed test, the results may understate the performance of your broadband service. 

We try to ensure that we provide you with accurate information on the speeds available on your broadband line. If you have a full fibre service then we will provide that detail when you are connecting. 

For other broadband services, we need to contact you after connection to run a speed test on the line. The table below details the download speed you should expect to get. 

Vodafone broadband service	Speed information
Fibre to the Home broadband services	Your broadband line can realistically deliver the speed that is advertised. Vodafone will commit to delivering the maximum and normally available download speeds above 90% of advertised speed. (i.e. for 1 Gbps service the maximum committed and normally available speed is above 900 Mbps).
Broadband services with a maximum speed of 15 Mbps - 100 Mbps	The normally available download speed for all customers should be above 90% of the maximum download speed that is measured on your line after it has been connected to the Vodafone broadband service. (i.e. for a line with maximum of 60 Mbps, the normally available speed would be 54 Mbps or more).
Broadband services with a maximum speed below 15 Mbps	The normally available download speed for all customers should be above 70% of the maximum download speed that is measured on your line after it has been connected to the Vodafone broadband service. (i.e. for a line with maximum of 10 Mbps, the normally available speed would be 7 Mbps).

First you will need to check what line speed you are getting by completing a wired speed test (using an ethernet / LAN cable).

To check the speed you can use our Vodafone speed test tool.

Next, compare the results of this test to what we have communicated to you.

If the result is within this range but you feel your broadband is slow, please follow the tips in the section below to help improve your Wi-Fi speeds.

If these do not help with your speed you can contact one of our dedicated technical support agents who will troubleshoot the issue with you. You can do this by contacting us on 1907.

To get the best speed test results we recommend running a wired test as this will be more accurate than over Wi-Fi.

To do this, connect your device (laptop etc.) directly to the modem with an ethernet / LAN cable then run a speed test.

If you are testing your speed over a wireless connection (Wi-Fi), bear in mind that it can be impacted by a number of things:

• Where the modem is and how far your device is from the modem when you run the test
• Interference from other wireless and electronic devices (e.g. cordless phones, microwaves, baby monitors)
• Device capability. Not all devices are capable of high speeds and if you test on one that isn’t, your results may be lower than your speed really is
• Other devices using the same connection can slow down your speed test. So try to run the test with no other devices connected to the Wi-Fi network
• Other networks sharing or overlapping the Wi-Fi channel used by your access point will reduce capacity. Try to ensure the channel used by your Wi-Fi is not the same as neighbouring Wi-Fi access points

To check your connection speed you can simply use our Vodafone speed test tool. Your results will look something like the image below.

What do my results mean?

Ping - this measures how quickly your internet connection can respond to a request (e.g. loading a new web page). The lower the ping, the faster your internet connection is at responding to what you’re doing online.

Download speed - this measures how fast data is can be consumed from the Internet over your connection. Generally the higher the Mbps number, the better. Higher download speeds allow you to stream high resolution. 

Upload speed - this measures how fast data is sent out over your internet connection. Generally the higher the Mbps number, the better. Higher upload speeds make it easy to upload large files (like pictures) and perform video calls like Skype or Facetime.

Vodafone relies on information provided by our wholesale network provider in order to give you details on your line speed.  From time to time, details provided by our wholesale providers will vary. This could be due to data updates, changes to the network or changes in the technology delivering the speed.

If there is a significant issue with your speed, we will work with you and our wholesale provider in order to resolve any issues with your service.