I was with Vodafone for over a year, travelling up and down the east coast of Australia, and then switched to Boost Mobile. Recently, on a business trip, I had nothing but dropouts – even in central Sydney, I was getting just 1 bar and 10 Mbps. Has anyone else noticed a drop in Boost Mobile/Telstra’s network performance since the takeover? It seems very congested.
You're finding what those "in the know" have known for ages - Vodafone is significantly better in congested areas because Telstra's network is horribly over-subscribed in high density areas.
If you never go to regional areas where you need the superior coverage, you're probably better off with Vodafone. You'll likely get better speeds, lower latency, and better reliability in the CBD and other inner city areas on Vodafone vs. Telstra.
For some independent analysis, see: https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2024/04/australia/mobile-…
Vodafone takes teh crown in the Download / Upload speeds, so if you have coverage with Vodafone, you're likely to get higher speeds (due to less network congestion), and Vodafone has better availability, which is how often you're likely to get a signal weighted by where people actually are - in other words, for locations where people are generally located, Vodafone is better.
I have both a Vodafone and Telstra phone (one personal, one work) and Telstra consistently gets better signal in regional and remote areas - Vodafone basically has hardly any signal at all outside of metropolitan and regional centres, whereas Telstra is quite good. However, Telstra is seriously sluggish in the inner city.
Great insight. I've suspected this. Will be interesting to see what the optus deal does to the vodafone network. Effectively giving access optus regional towers.
This is my exact experience in Perth metro. Voda is brilliant for me at home, work, on my commute and even in underground rail tunnels.
Telstra and Boost on the other hand, when I'm standing at the Perth underground platform hanging off a Telstra DAS at 3pm, my Spotify stops streaming and web browsing crawls to a halt. It's horrible.
I think the whole Vodafail scenario many years ago has done so much brand damage that many people are not willing to return and they think "Telstra is the best".
Telstra is great if you're out in the sticks, but metro it's not so great due to severe congestion which ultimately comes down to lack of investment.
I try to avoid Telstra now. The only reason I say that I try to avoid is because I'm a sim slut and I'll generally take whatever is on offer for <$10 per month lol.
There is a difference between boost and Telstra and I commented about this a while back. Was at Highpoint shopping centre recently to retest this and found a big difference between boost and Telstra.
Yep it's been painfully slow over the past month or so, even in areas where I've had no issues before.
I'm thinking of switching over to another provider once my prepaid 12 months is done.
Yeah similar experience for me the last few months. Definitely worse than before to the point of the internet becoming almost entirely unusable in locations where before it was great/no issues for years. Personally will be leaving to Superloop next month (which resells Telstra spectrum also but we'll see how we go).
Yehh, since you've mentioned it now I feel like it's true. I used to have perfect recpetion inside my local shopping center with Boost. Now noone can call me and I have to connect to their WIFI to get calls through. Same phone, same Boost plan, same location.
Is there any service other than Boost that delivers voicemail as a downloadable 'Voice Message'? On android, if that matters.
this is called visual voicemail, TPG, Vodafone, Optus all do it
Thanks, I've not had much luck in past. Will try again with a 1 month card.
I usually do a 365 day recharge with boost but forgot that it expires tomorrow and there are no offers right now :(
i just went for vodafone directly with cash back $180 for 300GB
@alterego13: Im on iphone but visual voicemail is a standard so should work otherwise because you're buying directly from vodafone the have a 30 day money back satisfaction policy so if don't work get your money back and move on but all roads say it will.
Visual voicemail (VVM) on Android is a feature that lets users view and manage their voicemail messages in a list format on their device screen. Users can listen to messages in any order without dialing their voicemail.
To turn on visual voicemail on an Android device:
Open the Phone app
Tap More options in the top right
Tap Settings
Tap Voicemail
Turn on Visual voicemail
@SpeedAU: This is the reply I received from the official Vodafone Chat
Vodafone Agent
alterego13, you can check the Voicemail details on this link - https://www.vodafone.com.au/support/device/voicemail?accordi…
It only shows the Visual voicemail for iPhone.
I will be honest with you, as per google the Visual voicemail should works on android too but not sure if it's supported with Vodafone Australia number or not.
@alterego13: like i said, try it out then if does not work get a refund. or check on Whirlpool forums
@SpeedAU: Problem is, they're saying it won't work.
Anyway, I'll just do a boost recharge for 28 days and hopefully another offer on Boost 365 day sim pops up.
@alterego13: I was with Boost, now Telstra owns them its gone to crap. In fact they have now degraded priority to Boost now so Telstra is on top.
I’ve been with boost mobile for years and the only thing I’ve noticed is when I’m out many places have such bad reception that there is effectively no internet access. In Rhodes shopping centre, in Burwood Westfield, in the CBD, in the country, don’t matter. I’m visiting a friend near Liverpool just now and the internet isn’t working again, no surprise. Need to find a replacement next time my plan ends.
yeah what i thought, Telstra also just released a blog post about understanding reception bars on your phone which most of the time 3bars. They claim there is more to it, but it's cover up for a bad 3g shutdown, and 4g implementation, the frequencies they own.
I went to a restaurant in VIC recently in a pretty populated area, and had 0 bars of signal. Previously had no problems with reception in the same restaurant. My phone is a Samsung S21 with Boost. A relative's iPhone 13 Pro on a Telstra business plan also had no reception in that area.
I suspect it might be due to Telstra reconfiguring their cell towers to reallocate 3G spectrum to 5G and something hasn't gone smoothly in the process.